


The Lost Daughter of Krypton: An Enigmaverse Story

by GhostandMiracle42



Series: The Enigmaverse [3]
Category: DCU (Comics), Supergirl (Comics), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Continuity Hints, F/F, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Inspired by Real Events, No Superman, Rags to Riches, SHIELD Academy, Stand Alone, Suicide Slum, Superheroes, The DEO is a SHIELD Department, The DEO | Department of Extra-Normal Operations, What-If, and a former SHIELD Agent, supergirl - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostandMiracle42/pseuds/GhostandMiracle42
Summary: “False God!”“God can’t commit crimes!”“Witch!”“You can’t try a God!”“Down with Luthor!”“Godless whore!”“Hail the Queen!”“Murderer!”“Supergirl! Supergirl!”Kara Zor El was five years old when she was sent forth from the doomed planet Krypton. Alone.For thousands of years, she drifted through space in cryogenic sleep, until, finally, her pod crashed on Earth. With no memories and no hope, she ends up an urchin in Metropolis Suicide Slum. Forgotten. She doesn't speak English. She has no one who cares for her. All she has is her strength.Until Lex and Lena Luthor meet her in a junkyard.What would the world do if someone like Supergirl truly existed? Would we fear her? Worship her? Maybe both... There's no Kansas farm this time. No values and trust of the law. A world where Earth's saviour came from its darkest corner.This isn't a Supergirl story you've ever read before.
Series: The Enigmaverse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798588
Comments: 22
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

# Pre-Story Authors Notes:

Greetings everybody, I’m Miracle and my husband Ghost is standing behind me. To our returning readers, welcome to Episode 3 of our Enigmaverse Saga! This story is completely stand alone to the previous two entries, though there are small references readers of Gemini Curse and Blessing will recognise. To our new readers, it’s great to have you! For the past several years now, we’ve been building what we call the ‘Enigmaverse’: a collection of stories within the same canon, with the intention of building up to an Avengers level crossover. If you want to check out the previous entries – hit our blue username (Ghost-and-Miracle42) above! You totally don’t need to have read them to understand this. It’s entirely stand-alone.

This story – while obviously staring everyone’s favourite Kryptonian – is big-time AU. This is a story about Kara Zor El and her journey from nothing to the hero of Earth – a hero believed by many to be a messiah. We wanted to tell a story grounded in reality, analysing what we think would _really_ happen if someone like Superman or Supergirl landed on Earth. This is that story, featuring, of course, appearances from everyone’s favourite LCorp CEO; Alex Danvers, aka the best big-sister ever; Barbara ‘I’m a genius’ Gordon; and, wait for it, Lex Luthor, who if you can believe it, wasn’t always evil!

Our inspirations for this piece – which we’re quite proud of – come obviously from the _Supergirl_ tv series, but they also come from the _Supergirl_ comics. Specifically, _Supergirl (Vol 5 #34-67) – New Krypton_ – and _Supergirl (Vol 7 #1-20) –_ Rebirth. If you want some recommended reading, drop us a line and we’d be more than happy to help. We’ve also taken major inspiration from _Supergirl: Being Super_ by Mariko Tamaki and Joëlle Jones. It’s a standalone graphic novel published by DC in 2018 and is probably the best Supergirl story either of us have ever read. We highly recommend giving it a look. As a final note on influences, Barbara’s characterisation comes mainly from _the Batgirl of Burnside_ by Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher and Babs Tarr.

We should also say here that the Disclaimers are back! They’ll start up with chapter 2!

**_WARNING:_** _The following story contains course language and discussion of religion_. While no real-world religions are mentioned by name, the themes we intend to address require us to analyse Kara’s role within pre-existing religions and the new ones that spring up in her wake. However, we understand that this topic can make people uncomfortable or be seen as questioning faith, and as we respect _all_ peoples of _all_ faiths, we’re placing this warning here as a precaution.

If you watched the Supergirl episode 3.04, _“The Faithful”,_ with the Cult of Rao, you should be fine here.

**DISCLAIMER:** We do not own DC Comics, or any of the other fandoms we’ve used in the fusion. Duh. But Alcheringa does belong to us.

* * *

# Chapter One: Those Early Days

## The Present Day: December 14th, 2010;

## Suicide Slum, Metropolis, Kent County, Delaware – 38° 58’19.9 “N 75° 21’24.9 “W

_*Believe it or not, Kent County is a real place in Delaware. Type the coordinates above into Google Maps to find the location of Metropolis._

The chair had _survived_. Lena supposed it shouldn’t surprise her. The piece of garbage was incredibly resilient. The ratty leather armchair – missing an arm and featuring a giant rip across the side – was still right where they’d left it. Sitting in the corner of a one-room red brick building on the verge of collapse, deep within the Southside District of Metropolis. Or, as it was more commonly known: Suicide Slum.

It honestly was incredible. Twelve years since they’d escaped this hell-hole, and no one had taken the stupid, fucking chair. Everything else was gone. The curtains. The door. The radio her mother had prized so much. The stash of drugs her father kept hidden beneath the crack in the concrete slab they used as a floor. Even the wires from the light switch were gone. But the chair still sat there. Covered in dust and dirt.

With an odd feeling of reverence for the old couch, she gently sat down and leaned into the hard, cracked leather. She sighed, biting her lip. She’d hoped… hoped that maybe the chair would smell like her mother. But the only aroma here was the dust kicked up from the demolition plant down the street.

“Lena?” A shadow darkened the doorway – the door long since stolen.

“In here,” Lena called back. The figure resolved into that of a young woman. Long blonde hair cacked with dirt; an oil-stained grey smock that looked like a bag on her athletic form; worn baggy jeans, ripped not for stylistic reasons. This woman looked nothing like the goddess worshipped across the globe: the saviour of mankind. Here, in Suicide Slum, Kara Zor El was just as forgotten as everyone else.

Kara walked inside, stepping hesitantly in worn Nikes. Then she slid down the brick wall and came to a rest on the floor, hands on knees.

“Lillian’s chair? It’s still here?”

“Apparently,” Lena said, patting the armrest that remained. They sat in silence for a long while, just listening to the sounds of crushing metal, the beeping of reversing trucks and the engines of cars. It was nice to imagine, just for a moment, being children again, running through those streets. But all moments have their end.

“He’s about to start,” Kara said softly, pulling out a phone entirely at odds with her attire. Lena transitioned to the floor beside her, and Kara placed her phone on its side so they could both see the scene unfold.

The video was of a courtroom, filled to the brim with reporters and spectators. Being led down the central aisle, wearing an immaculate black suit and green tie, was Lena’s brother, and Kara’s oldest friend.

Lex was shoved into a seat, and the chains around his hands locked to the wooden desk before him. Someone called for silence, slamming a gavel, and eventually, the audience grew quiet.

_“Mr Luthor,”_ a voice called from off-screen. The camera remained _fixed_ on Lex, not moving from that smug face, those burning eyes, for a second. _“The crimes charged are as follows: three-hundred and twelve counts of murder in the first degree, treason against the United States Government, tax-evasion and fraud. How do you plead?”_

Lex grinned, standing up. Every person in the room tensed for some bizarre reason that Lena didn’t understand. Surely, they knew if he wanted them dead, they’d already _be_ dead right? Being in chains made no difference. Not for him.

_“Not guilty your honour.”_ Kara and Lena had both expected it, as, no doubt, had the judge. It didn’t stop the guests from gasping.

_“You’re… certain, Mr Luthor? The evidence against you is incontrovertible.”_

“That’s never stopped him before,” Kara and Lena whispered together.

_“I am most definitely certain your honour, for I have the perfect defence—a mandate from a much higher authority than your own. I was a warrior in service of God, Judge Mackintosh, until I reached too far, and was struck down for it. Let me now, jurors, members of the press, and people of the world, speak for you the truth. Let my last act be not as the herald of peace I had envisioned, but as the man who wields the knife that would bring down a false God!”_

The audience _exploded_ in chaos.

_“ORDER, ORDER! Silence in the court!”_ The judge barked, but no one listened. Instead, the network broadcasting the live trial across the world went to break.

“And so it begins,” Kara whispered, “How much good can he undo in a matter of hours do you think?”

“As much as possible. He… he doesn’t care anymore. All the hard work we did together, building a better world, saving millions of people, it means nothing compared to his craving for vengeance. Vengeance against _us._ ”

Lena, tears in her eyes, leant her head against Kara’s shoulder. Then, together, they cried in memory of a brother who had once, so long ago, been kind and dedicated to protecting them through the darkest parts of the night.

* * *

## A lifetime ago. 1987; Delaware, the United States of America

Kara huddled, legs tucked to chest, against the trunk of a tall, gnarled tree in the middle of the night. The lush green plants surrounding her were taller than any she had seen before… _before what?_ Her head hurt so much. Her skull was pounding, beating with its own pulse. Why was everything so loud! She could hear voices, _so many_ voices, all of them speaking in a language she didn’t understand. And there were these rumbling sounds, constant and coming from every direction. The sound of each footstep she took was deafening. And… and… she was… _who_ was she? She was Kara… Kara… Kara Z… Z _something_. The rumbling grew unbearable, and she tried desperately to cover her ears. It did nothing. Lights shone out from around the corner – two of them – and a metal box on wheels appeared in the darkness. The rumbling… it was … it was a machine inside making the sound, and the wheels rolling on the ground. The box passed by her hiding place, vanishing into the dark, and Kara breathed a sigh of relief as the noise dulled back into the background.

What had she done? Had she been bad? Why was she here? Where _was_ here? Why couldn’t she think? She was Kara… Kara _something._ But what? She remembered… Flashes. Screams. Heat. Red skies. Darkness. No matter how hard she tried, she could see nothing but disjointed images. Nothing made sense! Why was there green? There shouldn’t be green! And so many _trees_. Trees were rare, and they weren’t green… right? But the trees were green, and so were the other plants – bunched up stalk-like structures that grew almost to her shoulders. She… she had no word for them. Couldn’t… _Oh, Rao. What was this?_

She wrapped herself as tightly as she could to hide from the cold, and the noise – as if her arms could block out anything.

Kara remembered little of her journey through the sea of trees the next day. Freezing, body aching, skin exposed to the biting wind, she made her way towards the voices she could hear. She could focus more in the daylight. The sounds were less overwhelming. Instead, she trudged through the endless green, staring in wonder at the flying creatures that flitted through the trees. She did not have a word for these things, so she called them sky-singers for the sweat songs they sang to one another as the yellow light filtered through the leaves. She travelled through the whole day, and only when the yellow-sun vanished would she collapse – all her energy and strength failing her. There she would find a place to hide from the wind, and rock back and forth trying to block out the sounds, which came back with a vengeance. Only when the silver-sun reached its peak was she capable of sleep, when – late in the night – the sounds began to ease. She always woke with no tiredness or cramp under the yellow sun, then she would rise and continue her journey. For surely other people could help her find her parents… people who _knew_ her.

It was that thought that forced her forward. Clinging to the belief that at the end of her road, she would find herself. For Kara could not understand the place she found herself in, with its yellow light and green plants, and she didn’t remember anything before waking in the place of trees.

Eventually, after days of walking, without even thinking about food or drink, Kara came to a fence of wire, and on the other side was a sense of familiarity. The trees were only in cultivated yards, and the green gave way to buildings of metal and brick. The noises were far more powerful here, overpowering the sky-singers. The speaking of people – which she still could not understand – and the rumbling of the metal box machines. There was also a soft humming that emanated from the houses, though she did not understand this. Fortunately, the constant intake of sound had stopped being painful now, even at night – though she still struggled to concentrate when the yellow-sun was not in the sky. The silver-sun made her feel sleepy and sore. The yellow-sun did not. She didn’t understand _why_ that was, but she understood enough. The yellow-sun was falling to the horizon now, so Kara decided to stay in the place of trees for just one more night. Then she would search for home… for…

She sank down beside a tree and began to cry once more. She couldn’t even remember her home. She cried herself to sleep again, until she was jolted awake by light, and voices. A hand rested on her shoulder as she tried to blink away the brightness, and she jerked away, scooting backwards across the dirt and green stalks – which were shorter near the fence, only covering her feet. The light followed her, shining in her eyes. It was still night, but the light was blinding all the same.

“Please stop!” she begged, and the voices ceased. The light moved away from her face, and she had to blink the spots out of her eyes. When she could finally see, she could make out two tall people – covered in clothes – with short black hair on their heads and faces. They spoke once more, but Kara could not understand the words. One of the men reached out with his hand, and Kara inched further backwards in response. The man called to her in a soothing voice, but when she didn’t move, he turned to the other man and said something further. The other man nodded, before withdrawing a small machine from his clothes and holding it to his ear. He talked into the machine, and Kara could hear a voice reply from _inside_ the machine. Was there a spirit trapped inside? Was it enslaved?

She screamed, rising to her feet and running away. One man, the one without the spirit, gave chase, but if they were together, then he must be evil too, so she kept running. Back into the place of trees. But the silver-sun was high in the darkness, and it stole her strength, so soon she collapsed to the leaves and green stalks, heavy breathing. It did not take long for the man to find her. He tried to approach, holding his hands outwards to capture her. A spirit! He must think her a spirit to capture. Kara panicked and tried to crawl away again. Her face was hot, and her eyes began to itch through her tears. This was it. She was to be trapped in a _machine_! Never to return home… to… to…

She spun around and screamed in fear as the man advanced. Her eyes _burned_ , and twin beams of blue heat shot from them, through the man’s chest and into the treetops. She screamed again as the man fell to the ground on his face, crumpling into a ball and clenching her eyes closed.

It took a long time, but Kara eventually pried her eyes open. The man remained where he fell. How had she done that? She felt so _tired_. She could barely hear the sounds around her anymore. But she could hear some things. A rumbling machine. Nearby. And the steps of the other man as he came closer.

Slowly, she crawled over to the man and poked him. No response. She continued to poke him, but nothing happened. She pushed him over and prodded at his face. He didn’t move. Was he sleeping? He must be because he wasn’t moving. She looked up and bit her lip, heart racing as a light appeared in the distance. She looked back to the sleeping man and his button shirt. It had a strange pattern, like different coloured squares, except for the two holes her eyes had made. Taking things was bad she knew, her mother had told her that, but she was so cold, and he was big, so he wouldn’t need it, right? The other man was calling in that voice, shinning his small light. He was getting closer. She moved.

She pulled the shirt from the man and wrapped it around herself. Then she ran, deep into the place of trees, fleeing from the voices and the men and their spirits.

* * *

## The Present Day…

“Kara Zor El was no saint sent to Earth by God as the holy men claim. She was not some wholesome being born of kindness. She was a little girl, and even then she showed her true colours, as a murderer,”Lex Luthor snarled into his microphone. The audience sat, speechless as Lex gave his testimony. He represented himself at this trial – after all, he would have only the best to defend him, and he _was_ the best.

He had tried to show them all the truth of _‘Supergirl’_. To show them how, at her heart, she was as corrupted as the rest of humanity. Kara was no god, for gods did not bleed, and Lex had made her do exactly that. But even after he’d shown them, shown them _all_ that the Girl of Steel was not a god, they had still supported _her._ Lex was the victor! He had proved it to them all, and then they had IGNORED IT! Well, not this time. This time he would have the last laugh. It had not been enough to kill God. He would have to show them the depths of her betrayal instead. And no one could do that better than Lex Luthor. Godkiller… it certainly had a nice ring to it.

* * *

## 1987; Suburban Metropolis, Delaware

Kara Zor El. That was her name. _How_ had she forgotten that? It just… it made no sense. She was Kara Zor El. Always had been. Always would be. Kara Zor El, daughter of Zor and… and… She shook her head and continued through the alleyway. She’d remember eventually. She just needed food.

It had been three days since she’d fled from the two men, and she was feeling incredibly guilty. _Everyone_ in the city had those small machines, and they weren’t speaking to spirits, they were actually talking to other people. She really had panicked, but in her defence, they’d been shining that light at her, and it had been night-time, _and_ she’d been scared. Still, she’d made a promise to herself that, if she saw them again, she would apologise.

Kara stepped out of the alley and walked down the street, taking care not to get in the way of the few adults on the path. She was still near the outskirts of the city – she’d seen from a vantage point yesterday that it stretched on for great distances in all directions, but there was nothing she recognised, and no new memories had surfaced. So, she’d tried to talk to people. No one could understand her words, and she could not understand theirs. She knew she’d learnt language early, her mother… her mother had been a… She’d been good with words, and she’d taught Kara at an early age, but these people did not speak anything vaguely close to what Kara knew. With talking not an option, Kara had decided to journey through the city – headed towards the centre – in the hope that she would see something or someone she remembered. She’d take anything at this point. She still wore the shirt with the strange pattern. It hung on her like a gown, brushing just below her knees, and she’d rolled up the long sleeves so she could use her hands freely. At night she would find a space between buildings and sleep through the darkness. Sometimes others would sleep in the alleys, sometimes she would be alone, so she didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.

She continued down towards the centre, now very conscious of her aching stomach. It amazed her that she’d simply forgotten to eat as she travelled through the place of trees. Eating was very important. Her ability to hear things far away had returned that first day – though it was weaker than with the trees. It had grown stronger each day since then, but she found she could control it better now. Focus her hearing in a way that allowed her to push all the extra sounds into the background. It was lucky too because there were just _so many_ sounds in the city.

Right now, she was focussing her hearing on one thing, in particular, the sound of crunching food. She thought perhaps it was a triothal fruit, as they made crisp crunching sounds when eaten. Though, if you had asked her what a triothal fruit was, she would be unable to tell you. Sure enough, after a short while of walking, she came across a building with lots of foods of different colours displayed on tables. She could see the person she’d focussed on, a woman with dark hair, biting into a red fruit of a circular shape. Deciding that this fruit must taste good, she grabbed one from the tables and took a bite.

It was sweeter than she expected, but it certainly crunched well, and her teeth tingled as they bit into the flesh. She swallowed, and her stomach grumbled, craving more. She took another bite and started looking around the other tables. There were so many different _colours_. She’d never seen anything like it. Back home everything was made by machines, so while they tasted different, most of the time things were the same colours. Browns, whites, blacks, greys...

Kara stopped still, trying hard to focus on the memory, trying to form it in her mind. She thought… she thought she might be able to recognise a face, then it slipped through her fingers. She tried harder. Red skies, blonde hair, stone walls, cold metal, screams, then a flash of green, and a planet tore itself in half.

She screamed in fright, stumbling backwards into a man. She spun around, breath quickening, and came face to face with an old man, hair greyed, wearing an apron with a message of strange squiggles on a piece of metal pinned to his breast. He spoke to her in that other language, and Kara tried to back away. The man’s face turned dark, and he reached out, grabbing her wrist. Then he pulled the fruit from her hand. He tried speaking to her again, then seemingly gave up and started looking around, shouting. He had drawn quite a commotion by this point, and people were stopping to look. Kara, whole body trembling in fright – both from the memory and from the man’s grip – slapped her hand against the man’s arm in an attempt to break his grip.

It worked, and the man jerked back with a howl of pain. Kara ran, ducking around the tables, fruit forgotten. She made her way back out to the paths and ran down the light ground path – weaving between walkers as voices screamed behind her. She had learnt on her first day that the larger dark coloured path that ran between the light paths on either side was for the metal boxes, not for people.

She lost track of time as she ran, tears in her eyes. Eventually, as the yellow-sun started to fall away, she found another alley, though this one was far less clean than others she had stayed in, and huddled down next to a tall plastic box, coloured green. She was still hungry – the single bite of the fruit not enough to sate her – so when the smell of food entered her nostrils, she couldn’t help reaching into the box and poking around for something she was familiar with. She found a brownish food that was crisp and chewy, and it tasted bland, but it was food, and it would have to do.

The next day, when she woke up, Kara was no longer in the alley where she’d fallen asleep. Instead, she was in a dark room, surrounded by other people, with metal chains on her arms and feet. Her back rested against a wall – a wall of metal. Shocking awake, her hearing returned, and the whimpering and crying of the people in the room became as loud as if they were yelling. Then there was the rumbling that surrounded them. With a start, she realised she was inside one of the metal moving boxes. How had she gotten here? Why hadn’t she woken up? She shivered and tried to take steady breaths. She pulled on the chains, trying to pull free, and they snapped with ease. She broke the bindings on her feet as well, unaware of the impossibility of what she had done, and stood up. Two figures wearing black, seated at the head of the small space copied her movements, barking at her in their language. She ignored them, looking around, trying to figure out just what was going on. Five more people were in the machine with her. One she recognised from the alley the previous night – a young woman with blonde hair – the others she didn’t know. All were chained as she had been, and all were watching her.

“What’s happening?” She tried, but none answered. One of the black-clad people raised a foot and kicked her in the chest. She fell over the bound people’s legs, hitting the ground. The person who kicked her advanced, grabbing her arm and shoving her back into the wall. He muttered to himself as he grabbed the broken chains, then stared in shock at them. Kara used the distraction to push him away from her, and the man fell back with little resistance. The other man drew a different shaped black box thing from his clothes, pointing it at her – these people really did like their black machines. She heard something ‘click’ sharply. Then a _‘bang!’_ echoed in the room, and the others all screamed. Kara threw her hands to her ears and stumbled backwards as she felt something hit her leg. She glanced down as the sound dissipated, and saw a tiny piece of metal, crushed, fall to the floor. She looked back up just in time for the first man – the one who kicked her – to hit her in the face.

She expected pain, she expected force, but there was nothing. The hand bounced away from her face, and he screamed. Kara stared at his hand, heart beginning to pound. His hand was crumpled, just like metal.

Had _she_ done that? Oh Rao, what was happening to her. She stumbled back again, tripping and falling to her butt. Her eyes burned as panic washed over her, and two beams of hot light shot forth. They sheered straight through the man with the machine – who had been staring at her in shock – and through the wall behind him. Kara heard a grunt of pain from behind the wall, then the room swerved to the right, and Kara slid into the wall. The room flipped a bunch of times, and she slammed her head into metal, once, twice, three times. Then she was falling through empty air as bright light flooded the room. Or, actually, she had broken _through_ the wall. She hit the dark path, rolling a few times before coming to a stop. The box moving machine landed on its side, sliding to a halt. A dozen other box machines stopped around them, and she heard the wailing of alarms growing closer and closer.

She didn’t wait. She simply gave in to the fear that flooded her body, and ran.

The city had _broken._ Here the buildings were not clean, the paths were not swept, and cracks ran through walls and floors. The people here did not wear fine clothes or shoes. Instead, they looked like Kara herself did – with ill-fitting garments, dirtied hair and skin and sunken eyes. Were these her people then?

Why could nobody hit her? How was she firing beams from her eyes? How was she so much stronger than everyone else? What was she? Did she really care?

Something had happened to her. Something that made her different to everyone else. And after days and days of wandering in the wild and in the city, nobody had found her. Nobody was looking for her. She was alone.

* * *

## The Present…

_“Five years. Five years spent living on the streets of Suicide Slum. The Hero of Earth, destitute, forgotten, living in alleyways, a waste of space. Using her phenomenal powers not to help people, but to steal from them and intimidate them. Even I do not know how many she killed in those early days, but undoubtedly it was more than even she remembers.”_ Lex sat back down in his chair, and the judge called for order once more. Kara sat perfectly still in the crumbling brick house, using every ounce of her willpower not to crush the phone in her hand then and there.

“He’s not wrong,” She whispered to Lena, the woman she considered her sister in all but blood still leaning against her shoulder. “I was a monster back then. Those people in the woods. They were trying to help me; I killed that man. And the people in the van? I don’t even know if they survived the crash.”

Lena slapped her on the arm. “Don’t you dare think like that. If you start doubting yourself, _he_ wins. You were five years old Kara. You didn’t know what was happening. There’s a reason children that young can’t be charged with crimes.”

“I still did it. I did everything he said, Lena. And he’s right. I probably don’t remember some of the people I have killed. My memories of that time are so patchy. More feelings than actual images. Rao, we only know for certain that I did kill those people because of the police reports Lex tracked down.”

“It doesn’t matter Kara. You can’t do anything about it now. You’ve saved millions, perhaps billions of lives as Supergirl. Don’t let him take it away.”

Lena stood up slowly, and Kara could hear her bones creaking. How long had they been sitting here?

“I’m going to take the stand tomorrow. Tomorrow, we start fighting back. I won’t let my brother ruin all that we’ve done. I won’t let Lex Luthor be the man that destroyed Supergirl – the greatest symbol of hope the world has.”


	2. Chapter Two: Suicide

_*beep, beep, beep…_

_Hi! You’ve reached Ghost and Miracle. We can’t come to the Author’s Notes right now because we’re trapped on Earth 0 trying to avoid being brutally murdered by The Batman Who Laughs and dragged into the Dark Multiverse for all eternity. We do not own any copyrighted franchise depicted within our stories. Please leave us a review and we’ll reply if we haven’t been Infected._

_*beeeeeeep._

#  _ Chapter Two: Suicide _

* * *

## The Present Day: December 15th, 2010; Metropolis County Supreme Court

“The first time I met Kara,” Lena said from her seat atop the stand. Hundreds of cameras flashed on the balcony above, and she focussed on the audience. She would not look at her brother. She _wouldn’t_. “I was eleven, and Lex and I were looking for a screwdriver in the local scrap heap. Lex was building things even then, at the age of fifteen. I… I can’t remember why we were looking for it, but we were…”

* * *

## October 1993; Suicide Slum, Metropolis

_ Lex – 15 years old; Lena – 11 years old; Kara – 10 years old… _

Lex scrummaged through another pile of old scraps, throwing pieces of metal, wires and bolts in all directions. There had to be one in here. There _had_ to be. He’d checked seven piles already. He just needed a screwdriver. He could fix the chair with that. His mother’s chair. It had used to rock back and forth, but it hadn’t worked for a few months now, and Lex had taken it upon himself to find a solution. The problem was a bent nut in the rotational mechanism, but it was too tightly jammed for his fingers to unscrew – hence his mad search. He had a bolt that fit already. Now he just needed a fucking screwdriver.

“Lex? The Schott brothers are prowling around the entrance, can you hurry it up?” Lena whispered from her perch atop another junk pile. This scrapyard was not his territory. Quite simply, he had been caught taking from here before and beaten up rather magnificently for it. It had been worth it of course, as he had found the servo he’d needed to repair his father’s old radio. The one he’d left behind when he _abandoned_ them.

But this time Lena was with him, and there was no way he’d let them get their hands on her.

He glanced up at her then, catching her gaze. Lena was a frail girl – asthmatic in fact – with thick black hair. Her condition was often a source of concern, particularly considering he had no way to get her any of the supplies she needed to fight the illness. He’d tried breaking into stores to find Ventolin for her more times than he could count but had failed each time. Now, Lena liked to follow him around. He didn’t mind very much. The closer she was, the easier it was to keep her safe. She was also smart. Dangerously so. Not as bright as him of course, but she was close. She liked to watch him when he built things, and he couldn’t help but walk her through his methods. Her passion and attention were just so invigorating.

_I will get us out of this hell-hole sister. I swear it._

“You look what?” Lex jumped back at the sound, hand flying to the knife he kept in his belt at all times. Lena eepped softly, slipping on her pile of scrap and tumbling to the ground – dislodging a sheet of metal as she went. Lex ignored her for the moment, instead staring towards the source of the strange voice. It belonged to a girl, younger-looking than Lena and more emaciated, who was sitting on a rusty bench, legs dangling in the air. Her hair was a dirty blonde – though whether that was from soot or natural colour, Lex couldn’t tell – tied back in a ponytail with some sort of ribbon. A long-sleeved flannel shirt covered her like a short dress, and a pair of ripped tights hid her legs. She had no shoes.

“Who are you?!” He snapped, “What are you doing here?” Lena scrambled to her feet, drawing a knife of her own and standing next to Lex in a stance ready to run.

“You look what?” She said slowly, being careful to pronounce each word and gesturing towards him. She had a strange accent that certainly wasn’t American.

“I said,” Lex said, eyes narrowed and voice dangerous, “Who are you?” He didn’t recognise her, though by her look she was definitely a local. An urchin most likely, abandoned here as a child – hence her poor literacy, though it didn’t explain the accent. Lex had seen similar things before.

The girl stared at him, mouthing his words to herself, before speaking once more.

“Kara Zor El.”

What kind of a name was that?

“Who are _you_?” She asked, pointing at them and smiling as if pleased with herself.

Lex didn’t answer.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again. Was the girl an idiot? She frowned at him, mouthing the words once more.

“I follow.” Lex’s stomach jolted. Had the Irish gang figured out he was the one behind that anonymous tip last week? Was this girl a spy? A distraction?

“Why are you following us?” Lena asked, stepping forward, a look of concern on her face.

The girl shook her head.

“You, no. Mean ones. They… like you not.” The Schott brothers.

Lena stepped forward again, returning her knife to its loop.

“How do you know?”

Kara shrugged.

“Listening.”

Lex relaxed the grip on his own knife. She wasn’t a threat—just a nosy kid. Lena stepped closer to the girl, and they started talking – all be it slowly because of Kara’s apparently limited vocabulary. Lex turned back to his piles. He still needed to find that… Sitting amongst the rubble that Lena had disturbed in her fall, was the exact implement he required. A screwdriver.

He almost laughed.

A little while later, Lex and Lena snuck out of the yard into the streets. Lena had been a bit upset at leaving her new friend behind, but Lex didn’t trust her. They made their way down the road, carefully avoiding holes in the pavement and dodging the adults that shoved past them.

At first, they’d thought they’d alluded the brothers. They weren’t so lucky. Halfway home – with the sun beginning to sink towards the horizon – Lena realised they were being tailed, pointing out three men on the other side of the street mirroring them.

“Crap,” he muttered.

“Fire-escape?” Lena hissed in question.

“Two blocks, then make a run. We’ll slip in through a window.” She nodded, and they kept walking without varying their speed. It was not the first time they’d been chased after all.

Two blocks down, they ducked into an alley dominated by garbage bins – Lex thought there was a restaurant in the next building but couldn’t remember with certainty. The second they were out of sight, Lena bolted for the nearest fire-escape. She’d barely made it five steps before a voice called out from the other side of the alley.

“Luthors! Where do you think you’re going?” Five people – four men and one woman – stood silhouetted in the growing shadows. Lex didn’t know any of them. The Schott brothers and their friend stepped into the alley behind them – vindictive grins on their faces. Lex clenched a fist, glancing to Lena. She was keeping herself controlled, her face carefully neutral like he’d taught her. But her knees were shaking.

_Fuck._ This was exceptionally bad.

“We told you not to come near our territory again, brats. We could have gotten rid of you after you didn’t learn your place that first time. Now, you have our attention.” The leader was a brutish man – thick muscles, short hair, tall of build. Lex thought it might be Simon Peodwisk – one of Falcone’s enforcers. So that was who the Schott brothers worked for, was it? Lex began frantically searching for an exit. He had to get Lena out of here.

“Oh, my,” Lena sang, feinting a swooning motion, “ _all_ your attention? How will we ever cope with it? Oh, wait! Hey Lex, we’ll need to pay a visit to his mum. I’m sure she’ll have some tips for us.” Lex couldn’t help his lips twitching upwards at the sight of the look of anger that flitted across the brute’s face.

He stepped forward, and Lex finally spotted what he needed. A side door obscured by a garbage can. It was probably locked, but he didn’t have a choice. If these people got Lena…

“Hal sesh Si Mon.” A voice called from the alley opening. Everyone spun around, but Lex recognised the voice. Kara. She stood, hands-on-hips, at the entrance, right behind the Schott brothers and their friend.

“Who the fuck are you?” Winslow Schott Senior asked, a look of utter confusion on his idiot’s face. Lex thought he had a son. Poor kid.

“Kara run!” Lena screamed.

“Essa shick!” Kara called, her eyes on Simon. Lex began edging towards the wall, then he cast a glance at Simon. He looked absolutely terrified, all the blood drained from his face, breath coming in short gasps. _What?_

“Leave will you.” She finally said in English, her voice taking on a no-nonsense tone. Schott, eventually returning to his wits, swung at her, and Lena screamed.

His fist _crumpled_ as it came in contact with her face. He staggered backwards, yelling in pain, and fell on his ass. Kara didn’t even flinch. Lex’s jaw dropped open.

Kara sighed then, she stepped forward and punched the other Schott brother in his gut. He _flew_ backwards under the force of the blow, slamming into a wall and crumpling to the floor. She lashed out with her leg, colliding with the third man’s right knee. It _cracked_ under the blow, and his leg _inverted_. He screamed in terror and pain, falling. Kara grabbed the man’s broken leg, then, with one hand, she fucking _threw_ the guy over Lex and Lena’s head and into the five men behind them. Simon scrambled to his feet and bolted back the way he came. Kara took a single step forward, and the others quickly followed suit. Lex and Lena just stood there, petrified.

“Holy shit,” Lena whispered in awe. Lex couldn’t even bring himself to say anything. Kara kicked Winslow once more, then walked up to them with a cheery smile on her face.

“Mean ones.” Mean ones. She hadn’t been talking about the Schott Brothers at all. She’d been following Simon. And, apparently, he’d seen her do… whatever it was she could do… before.

“Mean ones are they…” she paused, looking thoughtful for a second, before her smile returned, “good ones they hurt.” Lena ran forward and pulled Kara into a fierce hug.

“That. Was. Awesome!” She made an odd squeeing sound, then proceeded to bounce up and down with Kara still in her arms. Kara looked positively confounded.

Lex finally came to his senses and stepped up to her in turn. He offered her a hand.

“My name is Lex Luthor, this is my sister Lena. Do you have a place to stay?” Lena stopped bouncing and stepped back.

“Oh, you have to come stay with us! You’re so cool! How did you do that stuff? Can you teach me?” Kara eyed Lena for a second, before looking to Lex. He smiled at her. An honest smile. This girl… she had saved Lena tonight. In his book, that meant he’d do anything for her. There were precious few people he could think of that would do anything to help the destitute – the proof being all the people who must have heard the confrontation as they walked past the alleyway, and yet none had come to help them. And, well, he _really_ wanted to know how she’d done… _that_.

Kara took his hand.

“Have no home.” She paused again, mouthing words to herself, “Is gone.”

Lena wrapped an arm around Kara’s shoulders, and Lex led the two girls out past the three men – still lying on the ground where Kara had defeated them – and into the street, steering towards home.

* * *

## The Present Day…

“She saved our lives that night, so we took her in,” Lena said to the crowd. “We… we didn’t have much food to begin with, and Kara put even more pressure on our supplies, but it was worth it. I got a sister, and over time, Lex, Kara and I became inseparable.”

Lena took a deep breath, then finally turned her attention to her brother. He looked so different to the boy they’d grown up with. He’d gone bald early; with no trace of the thin red hairs he’d once had. And that look of hate, of rage on his face. She just couldn’t reconcile it with the Lex who’d practically raised her.

“We knew next to nothing about Kara’s nature. She had no memory of life before the streets of Suicide Slum. We were only guessing as to her actual age. We tested what she could do of course – even then we were a family of scientists and inventors. But nothing we could do suggested any hint to her origin or how her powers worked – even Lex had no idea, despite what he might tell you, or himself for that matter.” Lex scowled at her, and she smirked back at him. “Her skin was impenetrable; her heat vision could reheat coffee or melt steel. Her reflexes were ten times faster than an ordinary man’s, and she could lift cars one-handed with ease. Her power of flight… we only discovered that later.”

She took a deep breath.

“We ran small scams against the gangs and crooks in the slums, always targeting those who used others for their own ends. Thanks to Kara’s powers, we started making a bit of money, putting it away. Our goal was simple – get out of the slum.”

“Three years after Kara came to stay with us, one of Lex’s friends, an orphan two years younger than Lex named Alex Danvers, told us she’d overheard people talking about a major shipment of drugs the Falcone Crime Family was bringing into the harbour. We came up with a plan. Destroy the drugs, take the cash, and make it look like one of the other gangs had taken the goods. The money we’d use to buy an apartment, and then we’d use what was left to send Lex to school. He was the oldest, and, though I hate to admit it, the smartest of us. If we were lucky, it might even start a gang war, and thin out some of the criminals who’d made our lives and the lives of so many of the other homeless people in Suicide hell. But a job like that, it wasn’t something three people could do on their own – even with Kara. We needed help.”

* * *

## February 1996; Port of Metropolis, Delaware

_ Lex – 18 years old; Alex – 16 years old; Barbara – 14 years old; Lena – 14 years old; Kara – 13 years old… _

Lena lay still atop a shipping crate, a pair of binoculars held up to her eyes. Her gaze was trained on a large cargo ship that had just docked at the port. Cranes were already lifting crates off the deck, depositing them on the concrete port ready for forklifts and trucks to move them away. She’d been lying here for hours now – waiting. And it looked like her patience was going to pay off. Two cars – black sedans – drove out of the night, parking alongside the wharf.

“They’re here, your intel was right,” She whispered, lowering the binoculars and passing them to Alex. She checked Lena’s observation, then nodded, taking a deep breath to steady herself. It was a bit comforting to know that their best fighter was as nervous about this as she was. Lena’s heart was pounding in her chest something fierce.

“Then let’s do this,” she whispered, before raising her hand in a fist motion. From a few containers away, Kara mirrored the action.

The plan was simple enough. Once Falcone arrived, confirming that this was the right shipment, Kara – dressed in a ski mask and a black biker jacket to hide her blonde-hair – would jump into the fray and start causing general mayhem amongst the mob’s guards. This would create a panic – causing Falcone to flee, leaving his men to settle the situation and deal with the disturbance. Alex – a competent martial artist – would then distract the workers from transferring the drugs. While she did that, Lena would set the drugs to a torch. The final team would comprise of Lex and Alex’s friend Barbara – a hard-eyed girl Lena’s age with shocking red hair – who was brilliant with computers. Their job was to get the money.

Easy.

She just hoped no one would die tonight.

Kara slid over the side of the container, landing on the concrete without a stumble, then proceeded to slink between crates like a fox.

“She’s incredible,” Alex whispered, turning to Lena, “And you really have no idea how she does it?”

“Nope,” she whispered back, “Believe me, we tried.”

Kara found her first goon and punched him from behind. He dropped to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut, and she moved on to the next guy. His head went into a crate – making a loud metallic _‘gong’_ sound. All the nearby guards instantly became weary, holding up their guns and pointing them into the patchy night – the only illumination a couple of floodlights. Floodlights that wouldn’t be working for much longer if Lex did his job.

Kara stepped out into a spotlight, and two guards opened fire. Lena winced as the sound of automatic weapon fire echoed through the docks. Kara _tanked_ the bullets, each shot simply bouncing off her skin. Her clothes were peppered with bullet holes, but it didn’t even faze the thirteen-year-old. She simply ran forward – faster than even an Olympic athlete – and took the two guards down in seconds.

“That’s…” Alex began, before cutting off, frowning. “Falcone isn’t leaving.” Lena squinted into the darkness and could just make out the sedans. She was right, they hadn’t moved.

“Crap. He must have the money on him instead of giving to an intermediary like we assumed he would.”

What do we do?” Alex paused for a second, then her face hardened.

“We stick to the plan.” Lena took a deep shuddering breath before nodding. Kara had cleared out all the goons within the maze of containers by this point, and she was heading for the docks to rendezvous with the others.

Alex raised her hand, swinging it in another pre-arranged signal. Then she left the binoculars and moved towards the ladder, Lena following behind.

* * *

Kara ran, a giant grin on her face, as a woman with a semi-automatic opened fire at her. Everything seemed to slow down for a second, and Kara side-stepped the barrage of bullets. She bent her knees and leapt through the air. The woman’s face contorted into a look of terror, then Kara was on her, and a fist to the ribs collapsed the woman to the ground. Kara slammed into the concrete, creating a dozen spindly cracks in the ground.

This was what she was made for! It was exhilarating!!!

Breath coming in quick gasps as adrenaline continued to flood her system, Kara stood to her full height – a full four ft nine – and focused her hearing.

_Step, step, step._ Alex Danvers’s light footfalls – a part of her training she assumed – came from the east as she and Lena moved towards the boats.

_Click, click, click._ Barbara’s fingers typing frantically from the south.

_“I’ve got it. Alarm disabled. You can blow the lights.”_ She whispered to Lex. Lex said nothing in response, but Kara heard the sparking of electricity as he hotwired the floodlight control panel. Within a few seconds, the lights all flickered off.

_“Whoever’s out there, show yourself. I’m not in the mood for games tonight.”_ Kara frowned. That was Falcone’s voice. Had he not left? Kara narrowed her eyes and peered into the darkness. Her vision was nowhere near as powerful as her hearing, but she could see much better in the dark than the others could, and she could perform a similar focusing trick. Sure enough, she could see Falcone’s tall, imposing form standing outside his sedan. Two guards with _rocket-launchers_ and five others with more ordinary weapons stood guard around him.

_Great Rao_. She thought. If Falcone spotted the others, there was no way they’d be able to deal with those guys. And… Falcone had flooded Suicide Slum with drugs and guns – there was no way to know just how many deaths he’d made profits off. He was a monster – and tonight, Kara felt she could do _anything_. Why not add monster hunting to her list of accomplishments?

Kara took a few deep breaths and pulled her hair out, letting it fall freely around her shoulders. She removed her ski mask and goggles, casting them aside, then walked towards Falcone and his men.

“Mister Falcone!” She shouted, silently thanking Lena and Lillian for their English lessons. Five years on the street with no understanding of the language aside from a few words here and there had made making friends practically impossible. But the Luthors had taken her in, taught her how to speak correctly – even if she still struggled a bit with remembering to use words like ‘at’ and ‘to’.

Falcone and his men all turned towards her, and one of them even laughed. To the east, Kara’s hearing picked up Alex’s foot slamming into someone’s jaw. Lex and Barbara were sneaking towards the cars, using the containers to her left to keep hidden.

“Who are you supposed to be then? A gift? The team mascot? Go tell your daddy to come and face me like a man.” He had an odd accent; which Lena had told her was typical of European families. Kara hoped to see Europe one day.

“I am…” What was she? She’d long since accepted that she wasn’t the same as everyone else. She was different, and always would be. It was time she started embracing it.

“I am your worst nightmare. Someone who can fight back.” Kara’s eyes began to glow as she walked, skin tingling with heat. She screamed, and twin beams of blue fire shot from her eyes. They slammed into Falcone’s chest, blasting him backwards and setting his clothes on fire. She switched off her heat vision but didn’t give any of the men time to recover. She raced forward, covering half the distance to the car before bullets started firing. The bullets bounced off her skin, and Kara jumped up into the air with a bound, fist clenched beside her head.

She’d forgotten the rocket launchers. Two rockets shot towards her, and she used her heat vision to destroy the first. The second she missed, and it slammed into her chest, exploding, and sending her tumbling backwards through the air. There was no pain from the actual impact, but she _could_ feel the surge of heat the bomb released, and the sound was _agonising_. It lasted for a single moment before her ears healed and adjusted to the ringing, but it was enough to disorientate her. She flew through the air some few metres before she finally regained her senses. She thrust her hands out behind her reflexively and came to a halt… but she didn’t hit the ground. Instead, she was _floating_ in the air, clothes on fire, ash flooding her nose. She could _fly_ — holy fucking shit.

Kara grinned.

* * *

Barbara begrudgingly admitted that Lex Luthor was brilliant when it came to machines. He’d hotwired the lamps with incredible skill, and now he’d unlocked the car the money was supposed to be in with a hairpin and a screwdriver, without even touching the windows. She was impressed – though his attitude could use some work.

He pulled the door open, and Barbara crawled inside, searching for the briefcase with the cash, feeling her heart sink.

“There’s nothing here!” She exclaimed, and Lex cursed. She crawled out, and a massive explosion rocked the docks. A blast of red and orange light burst in the air a short way away, filling the night with smoke.

Then Barbara’s jaw fell open, because out of the explosion came _Kara_. Hovering in the air, clothes on fire, hair floating behind her despite the lack of wind.

Lex fell to his knees, and Barbara braced a hand on the car. It was… impossible.

Kara dropped to the ground, leaving Barbara’s view, and she couldn’t help it. She ran towards where the girl had been, Lex racing behind. When they arrived, Kara was hovering a few inches above the ground beside another sedan, eyes burning with blue fire. Five men were prostrating themselves at her feet, guns and… were those _rocket launchers?_ … lying discarded on the ground.

Alex and Lena came running in from the other direction, and both stopped short just as Barbara and Lex had.

“Kara…” Lena whispered, stepping forward tentatively. The sound of the pale, black-haired girl’s voice seemed to snap Kara out of her trance because her eyes returned to normal, and she hit the ground with a muted thud.

“That,” she said softly, “was very tiring.” Lena rushed forward and caught Kara as she slumped.

“The drugs?” Kara asked as Barbara, Lex, and Alex carefully approached the two girls.

“Destroyed,” Alex said, swallowing a lump in her throat, eyes still on Kara.

“Did we get the money?” Lena queried. Barbara was about to say something when Lex moved towards the sedan, opening the unlocked back door and pulling out two black leather briefcases.

“Yep.”

“Then we should probably get the hell out of here,” Kara whispered before her eyes fluttered closed. As if to punctuate the statement, cop sirens began to echo in the distance.

* * *

**Later…**

Kara, Barbara, Alex, Lena and Lex sat on the floor of the Luthor’s tiny one-room brick house in Suicide Slum, staring at the briefcases they’d stolen.

_Two million dollars._

Lena had never seen _one-hundred_ dollars in one place before.

“So,” Barbara said softly, breaking the silence, “What do we do now?”

“We were expecting one million as a _best-case_ scenario,” Alex said.

“We can get out of here,” Lena said, “buy a house, right?”

“I think so,” Lex said hesitantly, “If we just pay upfront, the real estate agents shouldn’t ask too many questions. At least I think that’s how it works. Something to do with the commission. I… I don’t know enough about it to be sure.”

“So, we divide it up?” Alex asked, “Five hundred thousand each?”

“Why? If we divide it up, we’d each be back on our asses in no time. None of us have educations, and the only jobs we can get are for minimum wage. Kara doesn’t even know _what_ she is,” Barbara pointed out.

“What if we bought one house?” Kara suggested, “stay together. Then we have money to spare, and we could pay for school.”

They sat in silence once more.

“I’d like to go to a proper school,” Barbara whispered.

Barbara, Alex, Lex and Lena all attended a public school in Suicide Slum. Well, ‘attended’ was a strong word. Lex hadn’t gone in three years – claiming all the classes were beneath him and that his time was better spent working at the local RadioShack getting practical experience. He was probably right. The teachers were terrible, and the facilities were atrocious. With Lillian’s health continuing to degrade and the government not caring, no one was going to stop him. Very few kids in the slum actually went to school. Barbara and Lena were fifteen and fourteen respectively and still went regularly, though both agreed with Lex’s mentality and often skipped days. Alex had been trapped in the Slum since her parents had disappeared – probably in gang violence, though no one knew for sure – and instead worried more about getting food than school, despite her keen mind. And Kara… well, she didn’t exist. So that presented a slight problem.

But going to a good school? It was a dream for Lena. _The_ dream, in fact.

“Lex,” Kara said, “It has to be him. He is the smartest and the oldest. He goes to school. A _good_ school, then he can get a good job, and the rest of us can go.”

Everyone nodded, and they hid the briefcases beneath the concrete slab.

The next day, Lex and Alex went to buy some good clothes and look for an apartment that could house the five of them, plus Lillian.

* * *

## LCorp Tower, Midtown, Metropolis; The Present Day…

Kara stood on the balcony of the penthouse atop LCorp Tower, arms folded, staring out over Metropolis. On the TV behind her, Lena’s voice echoed.

_“Lex bought the house, and he managed to pass the alternate pathway entrance exams at Metropolis University. Within two years, he’d achieved a scholarship, and transferred to MIT. It was there he invented the product that made him famous: The Luthor Core.”_

The Luthor Core. Lex’s grand masterpiece. A microchip that, when tagged to a piece of technology, allowed it to connect to the internet wirelessly from any distance. People could control lights, ovens, televisions, computers, anything that ran on electricity, with the push of a button on their Luthor Core Remote Control – and later their phones. With standard speeds ten times faster than Bluetooth, the ability to link with the internet via cellular and WIFI and no need to buy new appliances, the Luthor Core became a smash hit, earning millions of dollars in months. LCorp had made its name and its fortune selling those tiny chips.

_“With the money he earned, Lex fulfilled his promise, he sent all of us to school. Things went great for two years – the four of us attended Metropolis high-school, and there we excelled. Alex and I both earned scholarships to Metropolis University straight out of school, and Barbara invented the Oracle Virus – earning her a one-way ticket into the SHIELD Academy at only eighteen.”_

_“Kara made a different choice…”_

* * *

## July 1st, 2000; LCorp Tower, Midtown, Metropolis

_ Lex – 22 years old; Alex – 20 years old; Barbara – 18 years old; Lena – 18 years old; Kara – 17 years old… _

Lena sat, dumbfounded, staring at Kara. Her sister (because in Lena’s mind they were sisters, no ifs buts or maybes), had knees tucked to her chest on the leather couch that looked out of the Luthor penthouse atop LCorp Tower. Lena still struggled to believe all of this was actually theirs. It was like a dream. One she was terrified she’d wake from any minute.

“I… I want to _explore_ , Lex. I… I can’t do that here. I want to search for answers to who I am, _what_ I am. My memories are so faded now. All I have is my language – and I don’t even know what it is _called._ I have to see if I can find something, anything.” She seemed so fragile at that moment, at complete odds with her usual bubbly and determined self.

Across the room in an armchair, was Lex himself. He too was different. Almost as different as the penthouse was to the brick hovel in Suicide. He’d lost virtually all his hair and now shaved it bald despite being in only his early twenties. He’d lost some of the muscle he’d had when scavenging on the streets, though he was certainly not fat. And Lena thought that the crease lines on his forehead were more pronounced now.

“So, after I laboured for years to get a degree, to get money and funds to send you to a school, you’re going to, what? Go gallivanting off around the world searching for something that doesn’t exist? We searched library after library, book after book for your language Kara, and we found nothing. There are no answers to be found. You’re… you’re just _you_. Why does there need to be anything more? We _should_ be experimenting with your powers. We have money, resources now. We can do DNA scans and cellular analysis…”

Lena could see where he was coming from. They were Kara’s family. Weren’t they good enough for her? Why did she have to leave them? Lena certainly found the idea terrifying. She honestly didn’t know what she’d do without Kara’s warmth around her all the time.

However, she could also, begrudgingly, see Kara’s side of the story. Not knowing who you are, or where you came from? Lena couldn’t imagine that. She may have grown up in poverty, but she’d had a mother who cared for her, and she’d known who she was. Kara had none of that, and the possibility that the answer could be out there, however remote, would be palpable.

“I love you, Lex. You’re the best brother anyone could ask for, but I need to go and see for myself… _prove_ to myself, that I truly am alone.”

Lex’s face tempered slightly, and Lena took a deep, shuddering breath before speaking up.

“I trust you, Kara. If you think you need to do this, then… then you have to do it. You won’t have closure until you do. Just promise to write, okay?”

Kara’s face broke into a grin, and she ran to pull Lena into a warm hug. Lena savoured the feeling… it appeared she wouldn’t have too many of them left after this.


	3. Chapter 3

# Chapter Three: The Plane

### The Present Day: December 15th, 2010;

“Kara vanished from the United States for years,” Lex said, prowling before the judge and jury as he cross-examined his sister. “Our only knowledge of her whereabouts came from intermittent letters and my extensive tracking of any outlandish event that could be attributed to Kara’s presence. She travelled across the globe, flying between countries with no regard for customs or borders, and possessing no identifying documents. I have already submitted to the court today the documentation of incidents during which Kara was involved, including several criminal activities…”

“She wasn’t committing crimes,” Lena sneered, “she was stopping drug-dealers and terrorist attacks, and you damn well know it, Lex!”

“OBJECTION your honour,” Lex called, ignoring Lena, “the witness is speaking out of turn.”

“Sustained,” the judge grumbled, “the witness is reminded to answer only the questions asked.”

Lena slumped back in her seat, and Lex smirked at her. She really was so easy to rile up.

“Violation of a nation’s sovereignty and interfering in the law enforcement efforts of a foreign government aren’t crimes you say?” he asked. “Perhaps then Miss Luthor, you could explain to the jury and the esteemed members of the media watching today’s proceedings how the crime of Vigilantism works in this country? Or all the countries that Miss Zor El has taken such actions, both as a civilian and as _Supergirl_?”

Lena said nothing, merely staring at Lex with hatred in her eyes. He didn’t care, he had a similar opinion of her these days.

“I didn’t think so. Very well, let’s move on to October 16th, 2007 then. The day the Church of Rao has taken to calling the Day of Revelation…”

* * *

## October 16th, 2007; LCorp Tower, Metropolis

_ Lex – 29 years old; Alex – 27 years old; Barbara – 25 years old; Lena – 25 years old; Kara – 24 years old… _

Kara stepped into the lobby of LCorp, backpack slung over her shoulder, wearing ripped jeans and a tank-top. Her hair was more frizzy than usual, owing to the Hawaiian braids she’d removed that morning.

The place had changed since she’d last been here. Back then, there had only been one administration desk, and the room had been relatively small. Now, there were _five_ administration desks, and the walls on either side of the room were lined with what she thought were help desks; the cues behind them curling around rope balustrades like airport lines. A giant chandelier dominated the room, casting light across the circular carpet with the symbol of LCorp that sat in pride of place in front of the revolving door. Kara and Lena had designed that symbol together. A slanted red L within a gold hexagonal character on a blue field. It was something from her language – combined with something of theirs. She supposed, in a bastardised way, it meant the House of Luthor – The House that Lena, Lex and Kara, and later Babs and Alex, had built from the ashes.

She walked with purpose towards the V.I.P. desk and came face to face with a middle-aged woman with a kindly face.

“Hello dear, how can I help you today?” she asked condescendingly. Okay, maybe not so kindly.

“Good evening madame, my name is Kara Zor El. If you wouldn’t mind telling the Luthors I’m here, I’m sure I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

The woman raised an eyebrow.

“Sweetie, the Luthors are very busy people. They don’t just see _anyone_. You’ll have to make an appointment if you want to see them. It’s a matter of security you see.” Kara’s mouth fell open slightly.

“Excuse me?”

The woman continued to smile at her, unnervingly, “Now run along, dear, people are waiting.” Kara gritted her teeth, containing the heat that started prickling her eyes. Then she stared directly at the black security camera fixed to the roof behind the reception desk and waved at it.

“Oracle, I’m home!” She called.

Nothing happened.

“Honey, if you don’t leave now, I’ll have to call security…” The elevator behind the reception desk opened, revealing a young woman Kara’s age, with square frame glasses, green eyes and auburn hair wearing a purple t-shirt beneath a black leather jacket. Her mouth was hanging wide open.

“Hi Babs!” Kara said, bouncing up and down, “Miss me?”

Barbara Gordon – Head of LCorp’s Cyber-Division and ex-SHIELD Agent – squealed like a teenage girl, and literally vaulted over the reception desk, slamming into Kara hard enough that both girls collapsed to the ground. All other sounds in the room died.

Barbara tried her best to squeeze the life out of her, and Kara reciprocated with as much warmth as she could risk given her strength. Eventually, with both girls giggling uncontrollably, they pulled themselves upright and hugged once again.

“O.H. MY. GOSH! Why didn’t you tell us you were coming back? Last I heard you became a Chieftain of one of the Tahitian Islands!” Kara winced. So _that_ story had gotten around had it. Great.

“That did not happen!” She exclaimed, “It was a godhood I’ll have you know. They built a temple to me, and they renamed their harvest festival in my honour. It’s not my fault I have the power to predict the weather with a holy device called the _‘internet’_.” That was a complete lie. They’d named her a goddess when she’d turned the course of a cyclone away from the island. And, well, she couldn’t say what she’d really been doing down in the Pacific with so many people around. She’d already spent five months in an underwater jail guarded by Merfolk before she’d managed to escape. She didn’t fancy bringing the Federal Protection Authority down on LCorp. She had a feeling it would be bad for business.

“Lena is going to be so glad to see you!” Babs said, grabbing Kara’s hand and practically dragging her towards the elevator.

It seemed that at that moment, the reception lady finally regained her vocal capacity.

“But… Miss Gordan, who is this girl?” Barbara stopped short, levelling a glare that saw the lady wither in her chair.

“She’s Kara Zor El, honorary sister to Lex and Lena Luthor, and major shareholder. She’s also one of _my_ best friends. Perhaps you should think about showing a little more respect.” With that, Barbara pushed Kara into the elevator and pressed the button to the penthouse floor.

As soon as the doors closed, Kara grabbed Babs’s shoulders.

“Okay, I’ve got so much to tell you, and I want to know everything that happened while I was away, but first things first, you _have_ to tell me what happened at SHIELD. Why did you leave? I don’t believe for one second you got fired.”

“Ha!” Babs laughed. “We’ll need some booze if we’re telling _that_ story. Believe me, it’ll take a while.”

“Pwease???” Kara begged, widening her eyes and blinking rapidly. Barbara punched her lightly in the shoulder.

“Only if you tell me what happened in Costa Rica,” the red-head countered. “Did an earthquake really cause that maelstrom that almost swallowed the entire island?”

“Nope,” she said cheerily, thinking back on the fond memory, “It was an angry sea goddess and a pirate-ship full of zombies. Which reminds me, I have a gift for you.” She pulled her backpack around and delved inside, her hand sinking far deeper than was physically possible.

“It’s dimensionally transcendental,” she said seeing Barbara’s astonished look, “I bought it from a Warlock in New Orleans… ah ha!” She withdrew her hand, showcasing a glass bottle with a corked top, a golden-brown liquid sloshing inside.

“I pulled this from a shipwreck off the Azores… there’s an alien city floating out there, I’ll explain later… It’s a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon from the year 1833. I have no idea if it will taste great, or absolutely horrible, but I’ve held onto it so we can all drink it as a family.” Babs grabbed the bottle greedily, cradling it like a newborn.

“You and I are going to be _very_ well acquainted my new friend,” she whispered lovingly as she caressed the bottle. Kara just laughed.

The elevator doors slid open, and Kara was barrelled over once again – this time by one Alex Danvers.

“Kara!”

Babs ignored them, proceeding into the penthouse, still cradling the bottle of bourbon.

Alex looked… so completely different it wasn’t even _funny_. Her long black hair was gone, trimmed into a boy’s cut, dyed a wine red and shaved on the sides. Alex had always been strong – there was a reason she’d been the best fighter amongst their group of friends – but now she looked like a soldier. At least it seemed her temperament hadn’t changed. Pulling each other to their feet, Alex led Kara into the penthouse, guiding her around the new floorplan and filling her in on the basics of what she’d missed. Kara had been back here only once since she’d left. To attend Lillian’s funeral. Two years after Kara had left to go on her journey of discovery, the elderly woman’s asthma had finally gotten the better of her. She’d caught a harrowing case of pneumonia, and her body simply hadn’t been able to hold on. It had been a peaceful death. That didn’t make the loss any easier to bear.

Kara had known that Alex had joined the F.B.I. – she kept in contact with her family as often as she could, but the exotic locations she found herself in weren’t always conducive to telecommunications. What she hadn’t known was that Alex had been promoted – big time. She was now second-in-command for the F.B.I.’s Metropolis based Maryland-Delaware-Virginia-DC Headquarters, and she’d recently met with SHIELD Agent Hank Henshaw about a possible transfer.

Eventually, they made their way to the balcony overlooking the city, and Kara asked the question that had been building since she arrived.

“Where are Lex and Lena?”

“Should be flying in any minute now. They’ve been in New York,” Barbara said, standing at the balcony with a glass of wine as she looked out over the sparkling lights of the city. “Negotiating a deal with Stark Industries.”

“Stark? Why him?”

“J.A.R.V.I.S.” Barbara stated.

“What?”

“J.A.R.V.I.S.” Alex clarified, pronouncing each letter, “It’s an acronym for ‘Just A Rather Very Intelligent System’. It’s a User-Interface built by Tony Stark that basically runs his company for him. And it’s unhackable. The guy literally went on T.V. offering twenty-five-million dollars to anyone who could crack the software. Our guys tried. SHIELD tried. Every hacker in his basement tried. No one succeeded. Even…” Alex trailed off, staring at Babs.

“Even the Oracle Virus failed to get past his firewall,” Babs said, turning back around. “The coding must be incredible. Every time I tried to break-in, the U.I. rewrote itself, completely autonomously, to counter my attacks.”

“So… Lex and Lena are trying to get him to sell it?” She asked, not really understanding any of that but judging by their tones that it was important.

“God no,” Babs said, “I just want to _see_ the thing. If I knew how to create an entirely autonomous digital interface, I could incorporate it into Oracle… and, well, I might just be able to create an actual artificial intelligence.” The lights seemed to dance across Barbara’s eyelids for a split second then, showcasing the sheer excitement contained within.

Even Kara – who was hopeless with technology – knew what that meant.

“Wow… that’s… that’s incredible.”

“Imagine all the good we could do! We could track and predict crime before it happened, develop next-generation technologies we haven’t even considered yet, preserve dying languages, and even possibly calculate a gene therapy to cure diseases. It… It could change the _world!_ ”

Kara leaned forward.

“Speaking of changing the world. I walked through Suicide on my way here. I have to say, I didn’t think it would work, but _wow._ ”

Suicide was _clean._ The streets had been cleaned, hundreds of collapsing buildings rebuilt, streetlights repaired, plumbing installed. It was literally a miracle. The Luthor Foundation was Lena’s pride and joy, and its single purpose was to revitalise Suicide Slum without displacing the people. Lena’s goal had been to rebuild the community from the ground up, giving people jobs and roofs to live under. Kara and Lex both had believed it impossible, but Kara had walked down the old main street and hadn’t been mugged once.

“It certainly is impressive I grant her that,” Alex said, “and crime is down by almost fifty percent. But don’t let the shiny new paint-job fool you. It’s still the most poverty-stricken district in the city, and gang crime still runs rampant. It’s just better hidden now.”

“Don’t knock it too hard,” Babs said, “the death rate has dropped by 350% since we lived there. All in all, the number of lives Lena has changed makes it all worth… it… What’s that?” Barbara pointed out into the night towards what looked like a falling star. Kara and Alex stepped up to the balcony, squinting towards the… _thing_ , which was growing larger and larger by the second.

“I don’t know… Even I can’t see it properly,” Kara admitted. Alex moved away from the balcony and turned on the nearby T.V.

_“… the plane from New York appears to be circling the city after experiencing an engine failure…”_

Kara’s heart jolted in her chest, and she gripped the railing so hard it crushed beneath her hands.

“Lex and Lena!” Babs exclaimed, confirming Kara’s fears.

“Oh my god,” Alex whispered, hand flying to her mouth as her gaze jumped from the screen to the falling object – which was indeed taking on the shape of a plane the closer and closer it came to the city.

Kara took a steady, deep breath, then released the railing and began to back up. Babs stared at her in confusion, but Alex realised what she was about to do instantly.

“No way. You absolutely cannot do what you’re thinking of doing,” she warned, grabbing Kara’s arm.

“If I don’t they’ll die!”

“This isn’t stopping a tornado on the other side of the world Kara. This is saving a plane in the middle of Metropolis. Cameras will see you, you’ll be on the news, on every social media feed by sunrise…”

“It doesn’t matter. I have to try.” Kara, whole body trembling as adrenaline surged to life within her, shook off Alex’s grip, and ran towards the balcony. Babs jerked away from the railing, and Kara took one final step, bracing her knees, before shooting up and into the sky, cracking the tiled floor beneath her.

Kara soared away from LCorp Tower, feeling the wind rushing past her, blowing her hair out behind her. She wove between a dozen skyscrapers, then rocketed directly upwards and into the night. Both the plane’s main engines had burst into flame, and it was clearly going to crash nose-first into the city if she didn’t do something. Thousands would die, including Lex and Lena.

She had never caught a plane before. Never even tried lifting something that big and moving that fast. She swallowed, gritting her teeth. No time to think about that now. She just had to _act._

She flew up behind the plane, using all her skill at focussed and selective hearing to ignore the violent groaning noises coming from the engines and fuselage. As she approached, one of the engines broke free and came spinning back towards her. She smashed through the flaming debris, setting her clothes on fire and shattering it into hundreds of pieces of scrap metal that rained down into Delaware Bay. The plane immediately began dropping faster, slanting to the side and angling towards the city. Kara put on a burst of speed, and finally caught up to the body of the craft. Throwing her hands out in front of her as ash from the fires caked her skin and hair and the wind tore at her clothes, she grabbed hold of the wing with the missing engine. She tilted the wing upwards, stopping the drastic tilt, but the plane was still diving fast.

She would have cursed, but opening her mouth would probably only get her a throat full of ash.

Horns and sirens had begun blaring in the city below, and with her hearing, she could pick up the panicked screams of the people inside the plane as the announcer begged them to keep calm. And two voices in particular.

_“I don’t understand. What’s caused this?”_ Lena; and in response, Lex.

_“Can’t be terrorists. We didn’t see anyone break into the cockpit, and there’ve_ _been no calls of_ _bomb or ransom_. _Mechanical failure?”_

_“Surely it was too sudden for that?”_

_“Agreed. That leaves…”_

_“Sabotage,”_ they finished together. Both sounded calm, far calmer than Kara felt at least, though she could still pick up the slight tremble in their voices that belayed inner panic.

Kara abandoned the wing, instead drifting underneath. She needed to level the plane, slow the rapid descent and steer them towards the water. Away from the city at all costs.

Not having any better ideas, Kara flipped herself over so she was on her back, and pressed her hands and body against the fuselage of the plane. Then she began to push with as much strength as she could muster. Her elbows buckled under the strain, and she started heavy breathing from the lack of oxygen and surplus of smoke, but she kept pushing. Slowly, the plane began to level out. She tried to turn away from the city, but the drag from the remaining engines fought against her, and she had to focus all her efforts on just keeping the plane in the air.

_“What? We’re levelling out? How’s that possible?”_ Lex’s voice whispered.

_“You… you don’t think…”_ Lena replied.

_“Kara.”_

The metal around her hands and knees began to warp, reddening at the extreme friction and heat. Still, she held on. Her body was screaming in pain, smoke filling her lungs. Still, she held on.

They barely cleared the Harbour Bridge before the plane slammed into the water, and Kara was plunged into the bitterly cold sea.

Finally, she released the plane and was sucked away by the current.

Head swimming, whole body throbbing with a soreness and weight she’d never experienced before, she broke the surface. Trembling, she pulled herself on top of the wing, and collapsed, desperately sucking in as much air as she could.

Then she was bathed in a white spotlight. Blinking away spots from her eyes, she stood on shaky legs. Five helicopters were hovering over the plane, lights centred on her.

She didn’t think. Couldn’t think. Everything was blurry, the lights were disorientating, the ground was pitching, she was bone-tired, and her clothing was almost completely torn away – what remained being totally soaked and barely enough to cover her. So, she did the only thing she could concentrate enough to do. She braced her legs and flew into the sky. She dodged between the helicopters and vanished into the night.

* * *

Alex stared at the T.V., mouth agape, as video of a woman – flying unaided – _carrying_ a plane on her back was repeated over and over and over again. The anchors didn’t say anything. The news was silent, every channel. No one knew what to say.

“This… This will change the world,” Babs whispered.

“No,” Alex said softly, “This will change _everything._ ”

* * *

## The Present Day…

“I would like to point out,” Lex said, leaning back against his desk, “That Miss Barbara Gordon refuses…” The judge slammed her gavel.

“The Defence is reminded that _Agent_ Barbara O’Neill of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division is a federal government employee under the protection of a _U.S. government_ Non-Disclosure Agreement, and therefore _cannot_ testify on this issue.”

Lex huffed.

“Very well, then. To continue, after October 16th, the world was gripped by a fever. Who was this mysterious flying woman? How did she do what she did? It was clear that she wasn’t using any technology – the photos of Kara wearing almost no clothes were very… _revealing_ … in that regard.” Lex sniggered. No one else did. Not in that room.

“Well, we wanted answers too. Kara had always been hesitant about testing herself. She wanted to search for the _why_ of her existence, not the _how_. After that day, Lena and I finally convinced her that testing her skills was necessary.

“What we learned… it set us on the path to discovering the truth of Kara Zor El’s existence.”

* * *

## October 19th, 2007; LCorp Tower, Metropolis

Lex wrung his hands together as Kara – dressed in a streamlined skin-tight black suit he’d designed – stepped up onto the raised platform in the centre of his lab. Scientific equipment of dozens of different varieties pointed at her, and Lex monitored each one from his position on the ground below her, seated beside a computer terminal with Barbara, Alex and Lena.

Barbara, while an excellent computer programmer, was not a chemist or a physicist. Alex was reasonably competent in Chemistry, but the in-depth analysis would be on Lex and Lena – specifically Lena, who had specialised in Bio-mechanics, Lex having focussed on the more practical like engineering, applied mathematics and physics.

On the wall behind them sat a flat-screen tv, reminding them all of the situation they’d found themselves in.

_“We return now to the story everyone’s talking about. The only story anyone’s talking about. The mystery flying woman who saved the plane. It’s been a week, and there have been no subsequent sightings of the person social media has taken to calling ‘#Supergirl’, named, of course, after the famous comic-book superhero, Superman.”_

“Ready Kara?” Alex asked, standing at the bottom of the metal sensor platform with her arms folded.

“Ready. Start the tests,” Kara said, nodding to Lex, Lena and Barbara. Lex licked his lips in anticipation and pressed the green button on his console.

A series of instruments dropped from the roof, circling Kara’s body as they emitted lines of blue light and soft beeping and whirling sounds. She stood there in the suit, arms outstretched like a scarecrow, for about a minute before the instruments retreated into the roof.

“Ok,” Lena muttered to herself, clicking between slides showing readouts of Kara’s body, “Muscle, bone and organ scans complete, the cellular and D.N.A. analysis are rendering…”

“That’s great Kara,” Barbara called, “Can you fly up into the air slightly?” Kara did so. “Thanks.”

They reran the tests, and Lex ran an algorithm to render an image of her D.N.A. sequence

“Lex, are you _seeing_ this?” Lena hissed. Alex stepped up behind Lena and Lex panned across to the cellular scans Lena was looking at.

“That’s…” Alex whispered.

“Not possible.” Lex finished, staring at the screen in disbelief.

“This cellular structure… it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen, unlike anything _anyone_ has ever seen. Her skin, muscle and bone cells actually appear to be exhibiting properties seen in _plants_. They have a cell wall, which animal cells, for the most part, lack, and embedded within that extra membrane are plastid organelles that absorb sunlight. But they don’t look like chloroplasts – the organelles plants use to metabolise solar radiation. And there’s no chlorophyll either. Instead, they appear to be using a type of carotenoid pigment, combining it with melanin to absorb almost the entire spectrum of visible light… _interesting_. Hence her white skin and seeming inability to tan… I’d wager this is evidence that wherever she came from, there wasn’t a great deal of visible light… perhaps a thick atmosphere or weaker solar rays, food for thought. _Food_. That is a very interesting question. Where is all that excess energy going I wonder…”

“My god. Guys, look at this,” Alex whispered, mouth agape as she stared at another screen. Lex and Lena moved to her side, and Lex raised his eyebrows in shock. It was the atmospheric analysis of Kara’s flight.

“She’s generating her own gravitational field!” Lena exclaimed. “Look at the force she’s exerting on the plate.”

“Half of what she should be. That’s incredible.”

“But how is it possible?” Alex asked, flabbergasted. Lex paused, then snapped his fingers.

“The solar radiation.”

“Of course,” Lena breathed, “her body absorbs the radiation, then uses the stored energy to generate a bio-gravimetric aura. That’s how she can fly, move faster than normal, and lift super heavy or large objects despite their density, velocity or structural integrity.”

“And she can expel the energy directly through the ocular nerve as Heat Vision.”

“And look at the _density_ …” Alex breathed, “her muscle strength has got to be three times the average humans.”

“And the calcium build-up in her bones is quite impressive as well,” Lex noted, then frowned. “I’ll admit, I’m no expert in evolutionary adaptation, but tell me those aren’t indicative of a body designed for a gravitational field…”

“A lot stronger than ours?” Lena finished, lips pursed and eyes thoughtful, “I can’t. It’s almost the exact same phenomenon observed by people who set foot on the moon, where gravity is weaker. If you or I were to go to the moon and try to lift a 100kg dumbbell, we’d find it incredibly easy. The force exerted on the dumbbell is less due to the decreased gravity, but because our muscles and bones are designed for Earth’s gravity, not the moon’s, you could lift the same weight with far less effort. You could also achieve lift far easier – the whole giant leap for man-kind thing.”

They all stood silent, coming to terms with that, until Kara called out, “Can I get down now?” Lena gave a thumbs up to Babs, who relayed the information to Kara. She floated back down to the ground, before walking warily over to the terminals. Everyone was staring at her. Kara bit her lip and clasped her hands in front of her.

“So… What… what did you find? In English please.”

Barbara rolled over, and Kara squished herself into the chair beside her.

“It’s incredible!” Lena beamed, bouncing up and down in her seat, “Your cells are acting kind of like plant cells – they absorb solar radiation from the sun. But, instead of simply consuming the energy for sustenance like plants do, your body uses it to generate its own gravitational field, which gives your flight and superstrength.” Kara’s lips quirked slightly into a smile

“That’s cool.”

“Your body is also super dense,” Alex said, “which, when combined with your gravitational field, is what makes you invulnerable. For example, when someone shoots a bullet at you, the bullet’s force is absorbed partly by your aura, then, when the metal strikes your skin, it bounces off instead of penetrating, and the momentum of the impact is absorbed by the body.” Kara nodded her understanding, then paused.

“Why does it do that?” They all paused, not really having an answer to that. Finally, Lex’s monitor dinged – signalling the completion of the D.N.A. render. He moved over to it, then swivelled his monitor so the girls could see it clearer. Displayed clearly on the screen was a D.N.A. double helix. The three of them stared at it silently for a few seconds, until Kara coughed.

“What is it?” she asked anxiously.

“Kara… your D.N.A… at best guess, I’d say it’s not human,” Lex said softly.

“What do you mean? It has to be human…” She said, breath quickening, eyes darting between Lex and Lena.

“It’s a bit like…” Lena stuttered, then stopped, took a deep breath, and continued, “All species on earth have similar D.N.A. structures to a degree. For example, Humans and Cats share about 90% of their D.N.A., Humans and Chimpanzees – our closest living relatives – share 96%. Even Humans and plants shared about 60%, depending on the species. Your D.N.A… matches at about 73%.”

Kara blinked rapidly several times.

“What?”

Lex turned back to his screen and took up the narrative.

“Your D.N.A., while carrying the typical four base pairs of Adenine(A)-Thymine(T) and Guanine(G)-Cytosine(C), has a prevalence of a fifth nucleotide, Uracil(U).”

“What does that mean?” Barbara asked, grabbing Kara’s hand and squeezing it. It was Alex who answered.

“Uracil is a… a carbonite nucleotide, like the other four bases. But, during cell replication, when the two halves of the D.N.A. double helix split into what’s called R.N.A., Thymine is replaced by Uracil. Why exactly this happens geneticists aren’t totally sure; the prevailing theory is that evolution sort of phased the use of Uracil in D.N.A. out in exchange for Thymine to increase genetic stability… But it’s still used in R.N.A. because its less complicated than Thymine and reacts better with glucose.”

“Precisely,” Lex continued, while Lena just stared at her screen with an intense frown. “Your D.N.A., however, looks like this evolution is still in process, with Uracil making up about one-third of the typical human A-T pairs.”

“Ok…” Kara said, confusion etched across her face, “Is that the only difference? Couldn’t that just be a mutation or something?”

“It could be if that was the only change,” Lena admitted.

“It’s not though, is it?”

“Not by a long-shot,” Lex confirmed.

“Your D.N.A., it’s not organised into two sets of 22 chromosomes and a sex chromosome – 46 in total – like a human’s. Instead, you’ve got twenty chromosomes and a sex chromosome – only 42… and Kara, they look completely different to what I’d expect to see,” Lena explained, voice soft, and not looking at Kara. Lex couldn’t tell for sure, but he’d wager she was crying. “Kara… You’ll never have kids.”

“What! No! That’s… that’s wrong. You’ve got it wrong… you must have… run… run the test again, you’ll see.” Barbara pulled Kara into a hug as the girl burst into tears. Alex was there in seconds as well, wrapping her arms around them both.

“What am I?” she whispered, a haunted, disgusted look in her eyes.

“I don’t know,” Lena said, before burying herself in the data. Lex turned back to the T.V.

_“What is she? Where does she come from? These are the questions the world is asking. Is this_ ‘Supergirl’ _a freak accident? An alien? A messiah? Is she friend? Or foe?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions about the science let us know. We vetted it with my sister, who's a molecular biologist, and she gave us a greenlight.


	4. Chapter 4

_“Hello everyone. I was wondering if you could tell me where some friends of mine are. Ghost and Miracle? Those authors who keep having to tell you that they don’t own any copyrighted franchises? Perhaps you’ve seen them, or heard from them? Me and my friends are searching the Multiverse, but haven’t been able to find them. Send me a review if you have any information that could help us…”_

_“Regards, Bruce Wayne of Earth -22.”_

* * *

# Chapter Four: Supergirl

### October 20th, 2007; The Fridge – Building 013, Metropolis University

The Fridge was the tallest building in Metropolis University, named thus due to its shape – a giant, white rectangular building that towered over the rest of the campus. From the roof of that building, a person could look out over two neighbourhoods of Metropolis. To the east was Little Bohemia, to the west, the crime-riddled community of Suicide Slum. It was here in the dead of night, atop the Fridge, the University’s physics and astronomy hub, that Kara Zor El stood, looking out over the world. Her world.

Was it even her world?

_“Kara… your D.N.A… at best guess, I’d say it’s not human.”_

Lex, Lena, Alex… all the data they’d collected said the same thing. She wasn’t human.

She had thought maybe her powers were magic – she had seen magic after all, seen it transform people on her travels. But Lex and Lena had found the answers in science, so that eliminated a curse or blessing.

_“It’s not human…”_ If not Human, then what? Was she an alien as Lex seemed to think? Some Lovecraftian monster? The comic-books disagreed on Superman’s origin, it changed depending on what era you talked about. Some said _he_ was an alien, others a demigod like Hercules. Kara had never paid much attention to comic-books or fictional works; the real world was quite crazy enough in her opinion. But Barbara read them, and she would often go on tangents about superheroes, of which Batman was her favourite.

Would Superman be proud of her? She had saved lives like he did; thousands, perhaps millions altogether, and she loved helping people. It was the only thing she was really good at. Lex and Lena had their science, Babs her computers, Alex her fighting and deduction skills. Kara… she had been the muscle of their team. She had only learned how to talk in her early teens! It was part of why she’d left. She wasn’t a genius. She accepted that. But that meant she hadn’t really fit in with her family any more, and that realisation had terrified her, driving her away. She’d seen more of the world on her journey than she could ever properly explain, even to her family. She’d refined her powers, learned to speak five languages… yet she still had no idea where she came from. If she had been sent here from some other world, why? What of her parents, wherever they were? Had they loved her? Had they cared? If they had, why send her away alone? Was there some connection between her mysterious and unknown origin, and her horrible reoccurring nightmare of being trapped in the bitter cold?

She had a choice. Become Supergirl – the hero of Earth. Or hide, turn her back on everything, and disappear.

The trap door to the roof creaked open, and two voices echoed out into the night.

“Winn! We shouldn’t be doing this!”

“Oh, come on Nia, who’s going to catch… us…” They had obviously noticed her sitting there.

“Oh, sorry, we didn’t mean to interrupt…”

“It’s fine,” she said, “I’m not going to tell on you.” Kara grabbed the bottle of whiskey sitting beside her and took a long pull from the bottle. The alcohol did nothing to her – she had learnt long ago that she couldn’t get drunk – but she could still appreciate the burn and taste.

“Wow,” the woman, Nia, whispered.

“Want some?” she asked, gesturing to them with the bottle.

“Is that… wait am I reading the date on that right?”

“Single-Malt Scotch Whisky, 1969,” she said. Hesitantly, a hand reached out and grabbed the bottle, and Kara finally looked at the two individuals. Both brown-haired, with the exact same nose. The girl was taller than the boy – both university students by their backpacks and clothes. She supposed they could be boyfriend and girlfriend, but judging by their similar appearances, she had a feeling siblings was more accurate.

“So, what brings you up here on this fine evening?”

“Astronomy project,” Nia said, sitting down and pulling out a collapsible telescope from her backpack, “What about you?”

“Having an existential crisis,” Kara replied with a soft chuckle.

“Where on Earth did you get this?” Winn breathed, still looking at the bottle.

“From someone who owed me a favour.” He took a sip of the bottle and hummed softly.

“That’s _good stuff_ ,” he said, before passing the bottle to Nia, who took a sip as well. She grimaced instantly.

“Never been a fan of scotch. More a wine girl myself.”

“Fair enough,” Kara said, taking back the bottle, “I picked up quite the collection of Spanish wines from shipwrecks while I was in the Caribbean. The 1820’s vintages are quite good.”

The two kids laughed, obviously thinking she was joking, before getting to work on their telescope. Eventually, after they talked to themselves for a while and began making notes in their workbooks, Kara spoke up again.

“What are you researching?”

The pair paused for a few seconds before Nia finally spoke.

“We’re looking into cosmic radiation, solar winds, that sort of thing.”

“Why?” Again, the hesitation.

“I’m not a student, I’m not going to steal your project,” she noted, and she could imagine the girl blushing in embarrassment.

“We want to investigate just how solar winds affect our environment. Earth is protected from the harmful energies by its Magnetic Field. A paper came out earlier this year speculating that Mars used to have a magnetic field, but that it stopped working when the planet’s core solidified. It got us wondering, if our magnetic field didn’t protect us like it does, would Earth become like Mars? Barren and lifeless.”

“Interesting,” she said, taking another pull.

“Um, I hope you aren’t driving home,” Winn said anxiously. She had gone through about half the bottle now.

“Flying,” Kara said, frowning, “So you think Mars might have been like Earth then?” She looked up to the sky, scanning it for the spec of red that usually belayed the presence of Mars. Sure enough, there it was high above the horizon. She squinted, forcing her vision to zoom further in. She had gotten much better at this. Her periphery warped, and the city vanished, replaced by an infinite sky of black with twinkling white stars. But it appeared her telescopic vision couldn’t do a whole lot to make the image clearer. The planet increased in size from a speck of sand to about her pinkie finger, but there was little detail to it, and she was getting a splitting headache.

She let the image fade and blinked her eyes rapidly to force away the tears created by the strain.

“Maybe, a couple of million years ago. If evolution happened faster there, maybe they even had sentient humanoid life. There’s no way to know.”

“What do you think you’d do if, say, one of these aliens came to Earth?”

“Like sci-fi?” Winn asked.

“In real life. What do you think would happen if an alien crashed on Earth, and the world found out about it?”

The pair were silent for a few minutes, until Nia finally spoke up.

“I think that a lot of people would be terrified.”

“Me too,” Kara said, staring down at the bottle dejectedly.

“But I also think,” Nia continued, “that more people would be thrilled. Proof of alien life! Imagine all the discoveries we could uncover! It would catapult us into a new age of technology. Maybe we’d start racing to the stars again. The current trajectory of the Earth doesn’t look too good. Global Warming, Climate Change, extremism on the rise. If there was proof of alien life, I think, at the very least, there might be a reason to hope for a brighter tomorrow.”

Kara sat, digesting that for a while. Maybe Nia was right. Maybe, whatever she was, she could be a symbol for hope like Superman. It was a responsibility. A massive one. But she had been building to this her whole life, hadn’t she?

“What if the alien didn’t know what she was? What if she was terrified of what she could do, of what her existence meant? What if her only wish was to not be different anymore?”

“I think that would be incredibly selfish,” Winn said, “Everyone is different in one way or another. Sometimes it’s more noticeable, true, but that doesn’t change the truth. It’s our responsibility to use our differences – our strengths – to make the world a better place. Be it a social outcast using her creativity to write a novel that reaches thousands of people; or the billionaire C.E.O. who uses his wealth to provide clean water to a stricken village. We use what we have, to do what we can. And that’s enough. If this alien girl wanted to hide from the world, I could understand that. The world is a pretty shitty place. But respect her? Knowing that she could have helped people, and didn’t? Never.”

Hiding in the shadows had made things easy. Allowed her to move from place to place when she became too noticeable. But she hadn’t been able to live up to her full potential. She was the most powerful person on the face of the Earth. Maybe now was the time to make the hard choice. Putting aside the bottle, she stood up slowly and took a deep breath.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For telling me what I needed to hear. Oh, and keep the bottle.”

She braced her knees, then shot into the sky, leaving the stunned figures of Nia and Winn behind her.

* * *

## October 23rd, 2007; LCorp Tower, Metropolis

Alex made sure to stand beside Kara – that was, directly behind Lex and Lena – as the group of five LCorp Shareholders were escorted by their security detail through the lobby towards the limousines waiting outside.

LCorp was not a publicly-traded company. Its ownership was contained entirely by Lex, Lena, Kara, Babs and Alex – with each of them holding an equal 20% stake in the company. Lex had set the company up that way for several reasons. The first was to protect against corporate fraud or personal attack. If one of the five were to die or have their reputation discredited, the other four would be in a strong financial position to protect the company and its thousands of employees.

Second, because each person had an equal share, they all had a say in how the business was run. Lex had done this at Lena’s suggestion, as she’d pointed out that Lex had a tendency to become absorbed in his personal projects and forget that there were other people in the world. Lex had, to his credit, admitted this was true, and so he’d chosen the four people he trusted as his insurance policy. This had turned out to be a _brilliant_ idea, as it allowed Lex to focus on the technological side of LCorp while allowing Lena, Barbara and Alex to branch outwards and expand the company’s horizons. Lena had developed a new method of therapeutic injection three years previously that eliminated the need for exposed hypodermic needles or sharps. But the greatest part was that she’d also managed to remove the pain associated with most basic injections. She called it the Vokai Infusion Apparatus, (more commonly referred to simply as the V-Pen, with the original name taken from Kara’s word for ‘to help/to heal’). Lena had also spent a great deal of time with the Luthor Foundation, working to make Suicide Slum a better place.

Barbara… well, there wasn’t a hacker on Earth that didn’t know her name – some even had posters of her on their bedroom walls. The Oracle Virus was legendary, its programming code and operating system kept in only two places in the entire world: Barbara’s phone, and on a secure, independent, hidden backup server whose location only Barbara knew. But that wasn’t all Babs did. After graduating the SHIELD Academy and signing on as an Agent, she’d also founded LCorp’s cybersecurity division – propelling it to one of the most advanced in the world. They had contracts with SHIELD, Microsoft, N.A.S.A., Boeing and the New York Stock Exchange to protect sensitive data, and Barbara herself often went out on recruitment missions to snatch up enterprising programmers and hackers with promise.

Alex… honestly, she hadn’t done a whole lot with her share. She was technically the Director of Security, but she left most (read _all_ ) the operations to her deputy director. Instead, she spent almost all her time with the F.B.I. She loved her job, and she was _really_ good at it too. Her friends didn’t know most of what she did – the majority of it being Classified – but she’d earned quite the reputation at Headquarters. And it had gotten out. A month ago, she’d received a visit from Agent Hank Henshaw, Director of the SHIELD Department of Extranormal Operations – SHIELD’s first contact division for superhuman and alien threats. The Director of the D.E.O., visiting her personally. It was unthinkable. And _thrilling_. She’d wanted to get Kara’s permission before accepting – her being one of those superhuman people the Department was designed to combat – and she’d been nothing if not supportive. She’d also spoken to Babs, who had more experience with SHIELD than anyone. She’d said to join up, if only so that Alex could have a greater understanding of the world she lived in. But she’d also warned her. SHIELD was full of people both altruistic and ambitious, and walking the two was a fine line many failed. Still, Alex had decided that she would accept the position when she called Director Henshaw tomorrow.

For now, she guarded her adopted family against a potential threat willing to cause mass casualties to get what they wanted. They were under no impression that the plane sabotage hadn’t been intended to kill the two Luthors. Alex’s first suspect had been Tony Stark but had ruled him out. There would have been far easier ways to get rid of the brother and sister if Stark had been the perpetrator. Unfortunately, that left the suspect pool very small. It could be anyone. Corporate sabotage, an old enemy from their time in Suicide, a disgruntled employee. Regardless, she’d spoken with Kara shortly after the Luthors had returned safely from the plane crash, and both had agreed to be extra suspicious until the current conflict was resolved. Alex had also called her boss at the F.B.I., requesting reactivation (she was supposed to be on leave) and jurisdiction to arrest any potential attackers. She’d gotten it within minutes. The Luthors were very important and high-profile people.

“Yes,” Lena was saying into her phone, “I want all the faulty V-Pen’s destroyed, and a new order sent immediately, Malcolm.” Malcolm Summers was the company’s C.F.O. Lena looked quite stunning in Alex’s opinion, her sleek black knee-length dress accentuating her curves. And she owned those heels. Alex always fell over when she tried to walk in heels.

“No. We’re not charging them, they will be entirely free, _and_ we will pay for shipping as recompense for our screwup. I don’t care that it’s only going to regional Africa, or how much it costs. I will not have potentially harmful technology sent to anyone, regardless of country, and that’s final.”

The group strode through the revolving doors and made their way towards the limousines. A crowd of reporters immediately began shouting after them, camera shutters singing in the busy Metropolis street. Alex scanned the surrounding road, but couldn’t spot anything that looked out of place. That didn’t mean there weren’t snipers in the adjacent buildings though. She’d only be happy once they were securely back inside LCorp, where her handpicked security defences could keep them…

Kara tensed, eyes widening. Alex didn’t hesitate, lunging forward and grabbing Lena around the waist. The pair hit the ground, Lena screaming in shock, behind the car as the sound of bullets ricocheting off the hood thundered in their ears. Alex rolled off Lena, pushing her up against the car door. Lena, panic in her eyes, immediately began heavy breathing as she tried to open her purse with trembling hands.

Kara had done the same with Lex and Barbara, as both were sitting with stunned expressions against the car in similar positions. Reporters were running in all directions, and the guards had all drawn their weapons and sought cover behind the cars or the walls of the buildings.

Kara did not remain out of view. Instead, she stood directly to full height, in direct view of the shooters, and stared at the building directly opposite them.

“Fifth floor, the ninth window on the right!” She shouted as two bullets ricocheted off her black and white Oxford University pullover. She ran towards the building despite the guards yelling at her to flee when a kickback thudded through the street. A sound Alex recognised immediately.

“Rocket!” She screamed. Kara didn’t listen. She broke into a run, then launched into the air and caught the rocket, redirecting it into the sky. It soared upwards for a few seconds before detonating with a ‘ _BOOM!’._ Then Kara’s eyes glowed a brilliant blue, and twin beams of heat vision leapt toward the building. A window shattered, then the superpowered blonde dropped back to the street. Lena finally found her Ventolin and took several puffs. Alex rose steadily to her feet, pistol drawn. The reporters and other civilians, who’d retreated mostly into the lobby, were standing with awed expressions on their faces, and the cameras were still rolling. Crap. Well, that could be dealt with later.

“Did you get them?” She called. Kara nodded.

“We’re not out of this yet,” she said. Then, proving her point, five black sedans came screeching around the corner at the end of the street.

“Get everyone inside!” Kara shouted, “I’ll deal with them.” Alex jumped to life, grabbing Lena and pulling her to her feet. Babs, her SHIELD training kicking into gear, pulled Lex up as well, and the guards formed a perimeter around them as they were ushered back towards LCorp. Lex and Lena were pushed inside, and Alex turned to the head of the guards.

“Take them to the crash bunker, now!”

“What about you two?” Alex glanced to Barbara, who’d appropriated a Glock from one of the guards, and nodded.

“We’re federal agents.” Checking to make sure most of the reporters were inside, the two women moved back towards the street, advancing quickly to the bullet peppered limo for cover. Glancing back at the doors made her groan, as behind the three guards that remained to secure the entrance stood a reporter with shoulder-length curly blonde hair and a crappy camera fixed on Kara. Dismissing the woman, whom she didn’t recognise, Alex turned her attention back to the cars. They’d formed a ring around the LCorp entrance, Kara in the middle, hands-on-hips. In the distance, Alex could hear police sirens.

A car door opened, and out stepped a man Alex had thought was dead. Tall, bald, thickly built, wearing a finely tailored suit and leaning heavily on a wooden cane. Carmine Falcone.

“I thought I killed you?” Kara said, seeming non-pulsed. The doors on the other cars all flung open and out poured a veritable army of men, all armed to the teeth with assault rifles and even a few machine guns. _Holy crap. What does he want?_

“Kevlar,” Falcone stated, hobbling forward a few steps so that he was face to face with Kara, “Turns out it deflects not only bullets but laser beams as well.”

“I’ll make sure to go for the head this time then,” Kara stated, eyes narrowed. “I liked this jumper.”

Falcone chuckled. “I doubt you’ll be needing it once you’re dead.”

“Did you not learn from our last tumble Falcone? You shot a rocket at me, and I walked away without a bruise.”

“Yes, quite the impressive feat that,” Falcone said, moving back to sit on the car bonnet, “You have no idea how long I spent trying to figure out how you did it. Trying to figure out who you were, _what_ you were.”

Alex gestured to Babs, and the two women slowly made their way to either side of the limo.

“But eventually, eventually, I tracked down the money you stole from me, hunted you through Suicide only to find you gone. Flying across the globe, stopping disasters and saving millions. I had whole teams dedicated to bringing me any report of a blonde flying woman of incredible strength I could. And eventually, I learned your name. Kara Zor El.”

Alex dropped to her stomach and began to slowly crawl beneath the car. Police cars pulled up on both sides of the road, officers drawing their weapons and calling for the men to lay down their arms. None did.

“You know they tell stories about you, back in Suicide. They tell rumours about the Girl of Steel, who was impervious to bullets, who was strong enough to lift cars with her bare hands. For so many years, I’ve wanted to find you and kill you.” The police tried to advance, but Falcone’s goons fired warning shots towards them, causing a quick retreat and calls for backup to resonate through the eerie street. Alex reached a point where she could sight Falcone and trained her gun on him. She could just see Barbara’s feet on the other side of the car. She was in position.

“But to do that, I needed to bring you back to Metropolis. I needed something _big._ Like downing a plane carrying your adopted family…”Quick as lightning, Falcone drew some sort of modified pistol from his jacket and fired it at Kara. Alex and Barbara both took shots of their own at the same time. Kara caught the bullet between her index finger and thumb, Barbara’s shot hit Falcone in the shoulder but glanced off what was no doubt a bulletproof vest beneath his suit. Alex’s shot got him in the neck.

The bullet between Kara’s fingers exploded, and she gasped in pain, her hand spasming. Falcone grunted, then fell to the side of his car grabbing his neck, beyond Alex’s field of vision. Alex, keeping her breathing and her instincts steady, watched as Kara shook her head and hand repeatedly a few times. Then, faster than the eye could follow, she shot forward, grabbing the car Falcone hid behind and throwing it backwards, crushing the men behind. The others all opened fire on her at once, and Alex took in a sharp breath. _Could she survive that much?_ Grenades and hundreds of bullets hurtled towards Kara, the sound so deafening it made even Alex cringe as she tried to cover her ears. Screams from the lobby, and more sirens – this time from SWAT cars – joined the cacophony. Both were utterly absorbed by the sheer magnitude of the noise coming from all those weapons being discharged at once. Alex couldn’t even see Kara because of the smoke from the grenades.

Heart thumping, mind conjuring images of Kara’s bloodied and mutilated corpse, she risked edging further forward.

The smoke cleared, revealing Kara, arms folded, clothes literally torn to ribbons, but without a blemish on her.

“I _really_ liked this jumper,” She muttered.

All the goons lowered their weapons in a mixture of shock, awe, and horror, and watched as Kara lifted Falcone’s body, bleeding from Alex’s neck wound and his suit ripped from shrapnel, into the air. He was still alive – amazingly. Her shot must only have grazed him.

“How _dare_ you come after my family?” Kara hissed. “You put hundreds of lives at risk, for what? Pride? Petty vengeance? And look where it got you.” Then, without a single attempt to stop her, she carried Falcone – a man twice as tall and twice as large as she was – with one hand past the sedans and over to the nearest squad car. The officer swallowed thickly as she approached. She rounded the car, opened the trunk, and unceremoniously shoved him inside.

“Carmine Falcone, officer. Drug kingpin and crime lord, with multiple deaths to his name I imagine. If there aren’t there should be.” She smiled softly at the man, who still hadn’t moved a muscle, before turning and walking back towards Falcone’s men. She floated up into the air, eyes glowing, then spoke to the street.

“Drop your weapons and surrender now, or face the same thing that happened to your boss.” Almost instantly, the men dropped their weapons. The cops finally broke free of their reverie, moving to cuff the goons on Kara’s instruction. Alex crawled out from under the car, and Barbara helped her to her feet. Kara dropped back down to the bitumen – though her hair continued to float softly – and pulled them into hugs.

“You guys, okay?”

“We’re fine, thanks to you,” Babs said, breathing a sigh of relief.

“We really need to get you some bulletproof clothes,” Alex noted with a laugh.

“Miss?” A soft, nervous voice asked. Standing a few meters away from them, holding a camera limply in one hand and an audio recording device in the other, was the blonde reporter. She was young, probably Barbara’s age, with grey eyes. The woman took a deep breath, then stepped forward, face hardened by resolve.

“I’m Cat Grant, a… a reporter for N.B.C. news. I was wondering if you’d mind answering a couple of questions?”

Kara tensed, and Alex grabbed her hand.

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered so the reporter couldn’t hear.

“No, I do,” Kara said, “My time-saving people from the shadows is over. I have to come out into the light, be a hero the world can look up too. I may not be able to…” She paused, taking a deep breath, “I may not be normal, but I can use what I have to protect those that are.” Kara slipped free of Alex’s grip, stepping forward, that cheery smile brightening her face.

“What would you like to know, Miss Grant?”

Cat Grant grinned as wide as her name-sake.

“Who are you? Where do you come from? How can you do what you do?”

Kara put fists to hips, squared her feet, and looked straight into Miss Grant’s eyes.

“My name is Kara Zor El, and I don’t know where I came from, or how I can do what I can do. I grew up in Suicide Slum, a scavenger, homeless and abandoned for reasons lost to time, until I met Lena and Lex Luthor and they gave me a home…” Kara continued, answering the woman’s questions to the best of her ability. Alex and Barbara stood there watching, silently cheering her on, until Barbara’s phone rang. She pulled it out and stared at the screen. _‘Blocked Number’._ The red-head winced.

“ _That,_ will be Director Fury. I should probably take this.” Barbara stepped away, face pale. Alex laughed at her, before turning around and seeking out the Police Detective, the SWAT Captain and her boss standing beside the blackened piece of road that marked the place Kara had taken the bullets and grenades.

“Alex Danvers, F.B.I.,” she said with a sly smile, raising her badge, “I’ve got some explaining to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Announcement
> 
> Hey everybody! So sorry this chapter is late, but, we've been really busy over the last month, and we haven't had a lot of time to dedicate to any of our Fanfictions. I mean, there's been Hamilton to sing, Covid to avoid, lockdown to depress, surprise Taylor Swift albums to binge, emergency surgeries to prep for, and hangovers to struggle through.
> 
> Oh, and one other thing;
> 
> WE HAVE A PUBLISHER!
> 
> *fireworks explode! *trumpets proclaim our awesomeness! *sirens call out in praise! *fans screaming our names!
> 
> *cough, cough. Uhhh sorry. 😐 But seriously, we have secured a publisher for our first original novel for a pretty decent advance as well. So go us! Now, the final draft of our first book - which we're working on closely with our editor, because we have an editor now (*eeeeek!) - is due in September and after that we're going to be busy organising other related things, as well as University starting back up once more and Ghost's mother going into surgery. So we've decided to go on a temporary hiatus of sorts until everything calms down a bit. We'll still update, but posts will be irregular, and will occur more when we have the time or a brief bit of un-restrainable imagination to leak out. Lost Daughter still has about three chapters in the tank, so we'll post those bi-weekly, and Blessing has two chapters to go before we hit the end of act one and go on a planned break anyway (as we did between Acts with Gemini Curse). We've only got first draft versions of the rest of the Okaran Civil War, and a couple of scattered sections written for Crisis, so that will take longer to get back up and running.
> 
> Thanks so much guys, and sorry for the inconvenience,
> 
> Love, Ghost and Miracle.


	5. The Oracle

# Chapter Five: The Oracle

* * *

## The Present Day; December 16th, 2010; Metropolis Supreme Court

"Your honour, the defence calls Agent Alexandra Danvers of the SHIELD Department of Extra-normal Operations to the stand," Lucy Lane, the state-prosecution, said, standing before the court in a business suit.

"Recognised," the Judge said, and Alex, with all the grace of her training, rose to her feet, moving to the witness box.

Alex sat down on the chair and nodded for Lucy to begin.

"Miss Danvers, how long have you known Kara Zor El – the woman known to the world as Supergirl?" Lucy asked.

"About… fifteen years."

"And you met Lex Luthor at the same time?"

"No. I knew Lex from school, when we both still bothered to go that is. I met Kara for the first time when we were planning our heist against Falcone in '96."

"Let's talk about this heist you helped pull with Kara Zor El, Lex Luthor, Lena Luthor and Barbara Gordon. Were you aware that the money you stole from Mr Falcone was originally stolen itself, from the Metropolis National Bank?"

"No," Alex said, keeping her eyes directly on Lucy and ignoring the clacking of the cameras, or the smirk on Lex's face. Lena's team of lawyers had expected an attack like this from the state. Lena, Alex, Babs and Kara were not technically on trial here – yet. There would no doubt be an investigation as soon as the jury judged Lex guilty. However, for the moment, they were just witnesses. That meant they were compelled to answer testimony, and Lucy Lane – the daughter of noted Supergirl critic, Defence Secretary Samuel Lane – was using the trial to dreg up as much as she could on them. (Barbara thought that the Lanes sharing a last name with Superman's fictional girlfriend Lois was hilarious). Lena and Alex's response tactic was simply to tell the truth. All cards on the table. If they told the whole truth of their origins, the things that really did need to stay secret, like Kryptonite, or the source of Kara's powers, might remain concealed. Anything else would hopefully be covered by Alex's non-disclosure agreements. Thankfully, Barbara couldn't be forced to testify before anything short of a closed-door Federal Supreme Court trial – her security clearance level being too high. That would have been a nightmare.

"You realise that, by not reporting and turning over the funds you acquired that night, you engaged in criminal activity yourselves?"

"As I said, we didn't know the money was stolen."

"Then you and your friends deliberately stole the money for your own use."

"I believe it's public record by now that we were criminals, Miss Lane. And for the record, if we _had_ taken the money to the police, we would all have been thrown in prison before we could have said a word. Also, just because we're on the topic, which prison did you have in mind that could hold _Supergirl_?"

Lane scowled, and the crowd began muttering. The Judge called for order, and Alex smiled sweetly at her questioner.

"Let's move on please Miss Lane," the Judge said, chin resting on her palm.

"Very well. October 25th, 2007. Where were you when Miss Grant's interview went to air?" Lucy snapped, her mask of decorum splintering slightly.

"Centennial Park."

"Why were you there?"

"Classified," she replied smugly.

"Judge!"

A man in a crisp business suit with thick black hair checked a folder in his hands, before stepping up to the Judge and whispering in her ear. The Judge huffed.

"The information requested is protected under Executive Order 13526. Move onto your next question, Miss Lane…"

* * *

## October 25th, 2007; Centennial Park, New Troy, Metropolis

Barbara sat on a bench in the middle of Centennial Park, glasses tickling her nose in the crisp air. She really should have worn something warmer than her purple leather jacket, but, well, she kind of wore the thing everywhere and had just picked it up out of habit. Beside her was Alex, also in civilian clothes – a grey beanie, jeans and a woollen jumper.

The place she'd chosen for today's meeting was wide open and easily accessible, with high visibility from every angle. There would be no ambushes here – not that she thought even SHIELD had the means to take down Kara. Agent Coulson would be proud. The park had been cleared already in preparation for the meeting. She didn't know what excuse they'd used.

She had not ended her tenure as a SHIELD Agent on good terms, but that didn't mean she didn't still agree with their purpose. She still, in secret, worked with two of her friends – Agents Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons – on cases they struggled with, using her programming skills to uncover data and precious materials even SHIELD's skilled hackers couldn't retrieve. She believed in SHIELD's mission – protection against the superhuman and the magical.

A black military vehicle pulled up on the road outside the park, and three people stepped out. The driver was a tall, bald black man with an eyepatch, wearing a trench coat and tactical boots. The second wore a suit, though the tread on the shoes bespoke field-training, as did his figure. This man was pale-skinned and had thinning blonde hair and a receding hairline. The final man was also African-American, with short-cropped black hair. This man also wore a suit, though he didn't look as comfortable in it as the second man did.

Nick Fury, Phil Coulson and Hank Henshaw. Agents of SHIELD.

Barbara and Alex stood up as the men approached – with no weapons, as agreed.

"Well Agent Gordon, I hadn't thought to see you again under such… circumstances," Coulson said, a genuine smile crossing his face. Barbara smiled in turn.

"It's just Miss Gordon now, sir."

"Once an agent, always an agent. Or did you think I hadn't noticed Fitz and Simmons suddenly coming up with information they shouldn't have?" Bugger. Barbara employed all her training to refrain from blushing.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she said.

"Oh, I'm sure."

Alex stepped forward, nodding to each man in turn.

"It's an honour to meet you all gentlemen."

"Miss Danvers. Imagine my utter shock when the name of my prospective recruit happened to show up on the news last night," Henshaw said, voice and face carefully neutral.

"I take it the offer is off the table then?"

Henshaw cracked an eyebrow. "Off the table? On the contrary, I secured an increased salary for you this morning, _and_ you bumped your competitors into the wind. Hiding a gifted so deep even _we_ had no idea she existed? That's seriously impressive. And it's just the type of ingenuity I look for in a DEO Agent."

Alex froze, utterly flummoxed.

Fury took a step forward, and Barbara pulled the stunned Alex back in line with her.

"Where is she?" He asked sternly, not taking his gaze away from Barbara.

Barbara didn't have to answer, because at that moment the breeze picked up in a rush. Then, floating down from the sky, came a figure in a red cape.

Lex and Lena had spent twenty-seven hours locked in their private lab, refusing to tell anyone what they were doing. The only contact they'd had with the outside world had been through text messages demanding either coffee, or a material be brought up from R&D storage. If they didn't have the material, it was to be purchased and delivered by the fastest means necessary. The Dwarf-Star Alloy had cost quite the penny.

Then, an hour before the meeting, the Luthor siblings had emerged from seclusion with a suit. A suit of armour designed to complement Kara's powers and abilities in every way. Completely fire-retardant, bulletproof, electricity and explosion resistant, with technology designed to monitor and amplify her solar-radiation absorption rates. They had built her a suit of war.

It was a deep navy blue – long pants and sleeves – to aid in camouflage, with a cape of blood red. The knee-length boots – with souls reinforced with Dwarf-Star to survive all manner of hard landings – matched the cape in colour but had a gold trim around the pointed tops. The belt was deep metallic gold, formed from a single piece of metal, grooved for effect. Locked into disconnecting segments were places for experimental upgraded versions of the Luthor Core, which could be used to take over almost any form of technology, and an upgraded V-Pen to test compounds as well as administer them. The cape connected to the shoulder guards and was designed so that, if caught or pulled on, it would disconnect immediately. The guards – made from the same golden metal as the belt – contained similar hidden compartments for an emergency communicator and a solar battery cell useable for a quick charge should, for some reason, she find herself without her powers. The bracers were Lex's pride and joy. The right bracer contained both an analogue and digital watch, and a secret compartment for her phone. The left held an advanced computer system mirrored to the LCorp servers that collected data from all the bio-sensors, sending it back to a server in the lab. Lex had wanted a mask, but Lena argued that Kara's identity was already exposed, so it didn't matter. Finally, the symbol. It wasn't the S. Well, it _was_ shaped almost the same as the S – the famous symbol of Superman – but it wasn't actually an S. Set within a pentagonal diamond shape, it started in the top right, then snaked its way like a river, before ending at the bottom left. It was Kara's word for hope – the coat of arms of the House of El. Lena had designed it as a matching red as the cape, with a golden background like the belt and bracers to make the symbol pop.

The result was an awe-inspiring suit designed to handle any situation – and when Kara had put it on… well, it looked like she was born to wear it. She had truly become _Supergirl._

"I'm right here, Director Fury. Agent Coulson, Babs has nothing but good things to say about you. Thanks for taking care of her while she was away."

Kara floated just above Barbara and Alex, cape and hair floating in her bio-gravimetric field. God, it felt better to actually understand Kara's strange abilities.

"Tell me, Agents, what do you want of me."

"Miss Zor El, if that even is your real name," Fury said, eyeing Kara as she continued to float above them. She had adopted a position with one knee bent, feet pointed towards the ground, and arms out to the side – so as not to obscure the glyph on her chest. "I'd like to offer you a job."

* * *

## Later…

"He actually offered you a job?" Lena exclaimed in shock.

"Really," Kara confirmed. She had changed back into pyjamas, and the five had gathered around the television, listening to a repeat of Cat Grant's report – which Babs, Alex and Kara had missed that morning.

_"I've spent the past thirty hours talking to reporters from across the globe, gathering sources and confirmations of what Miss Zor El claims to have been doing the past seven years as she travelled around the world, and though I can't prove them all, the legends that have risen up in her wake are confirmation enough. Sightings of a blonde-haired woman performing feats of incredible strength, or saving people from hurricanes, urban legends no self-respecting reporter would believe, suddenly confirmed as truth._

_"Regardless of what her unknown origin is, this woman is a hero—a warrior who has spent her entire life fighting to protect the people of the Earth. Superman is a fictional character mankind has looked up to since his creation. The embodiment of hope, and justice, and truth. I think if Superman were real, and he could see the woman that Kara Zor El is, he would be proud of her taking up his mantle. The mantle of the world's greatest superhero. Kara Zor El is Supergirl."_

"What exactly _is_ this job?"

"He wants me to work for the DEO like Alex. Help them stop evil superhumans when they pop up."

Lex scoffed. "Evil superhumans? Surely if there were hundreds of evil yous out there, we would have heard about them by now."

"It's SHIELD's job to hide this stuff from the outside world, Lex," Babs pointed out, "You don't know the half of what is out there."

"And you never thought to mention that before?" He asked, scowling. "Kara has been searching for her origins for years, and now we find out you've been sitting on knowledge that you haven't told her? Some friend."

"It was classified! And besides, there wasn't anyone who matched Kara's abilities anyway, if there had been, I would have said something," she snapped.

"Everyone calm down, alright," Lena said, raising her hands in the air and making a surrendering motion.

Lex and Barbara at least both had the decency to look chagrined.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of working for the government," Kara said, arms folded as she stared at the TV, brows scrunched in thought.

"Why not?" Alex asked, "If anyone knows what's going on, the best places to help, it's going to be SHIELD. Plus, they have heaps of tech, and strategists to help _you_ come up with the most efficient ways to save people."

"What if I think somewhere needs my help, but they don't?" Kara countered. "What if they won't let me save people because of red-tape? Or if they have a superior motive? How do I know some old, white man in an office won't use me like the world's most powerful bullet and fire me at someone for his own gain?"

Babs chuckled. "Well, I can tell you they _won't_ care about any red-tape, but the rest of what you said certainly is a possibility."

"There's also the fact that SHIELD is an _American_ government organisation," Lena pointed out. "People across the world are coming forward with stories about #Supergirl sightings. It doesn't matter if all of them are true or not. Right now, _'Supergirl'_ is a hero for the _world._ Not just the USA. If you sign up with the American Government, you'd lose your freedom of movement, and you'd be irreversibly tied to the United States. That means you'd never be allowed in Russia, probably not China either."

Lex leaned forward then, looking deadly serious. "I think there's something else we need to consider," he said, voice low and hesitant, "Why does SHIELD want you to work for them? What's their reason, their motive? I don't believe for a second that its _only_ about protecting people from sort-of-not-really-Karas. What do they get out of it?"

They sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the TV in the background.

_"In other news, billionaire Robert Queen and his son Oliver are missing after their family yacht capsized during a freak storm off the coast of the South China Sea. Both Queens, as well as the entire crew, are presumed dead."_

Finally, Barbara spoke up again.

"They get to Index you," she whispered, the truth crashing down on her. _This_ was why she'd left SHIELD.

"Index me? What's that supposed to mean?"

Babs took a long shuddering breath.

"I never told you all why I left SHIELD. Why I was dismissed." Lena shifted seats, coming to sit beside her and place a hand on her back.

"Wait, you were actually dismissed? I thought you said that was a cover?" Alex asked, now looking very confused.

"I _was_ right. Wasn't I?" Lex said, staring at her in that self-satisfied manner of his.

Babs just nodded, mouth dry.

"Right about _what?_ " Alex demanded, "Someone start talking."

"It was two years ago now," Lex said, pulling out his phone and scratching at his bald head. "I was in the middle of a press conference for something… I don't remember what about… then my assistant rushes up to me and whispers in my ear that I have a call from Barbara Gordon – our executive shareholder and head of cybersecurity who hadn't so much as answered an email in three months. Naturally, I end the conference then and there and take the call. She, voice haunted and rattled, asks me to send a plane to Eastern Europe to get her, that she's quit SHIELD and needs to be back in the Tower before her boss comes looking for her. Within five minutes of her arriving in the penthouse, a SHIELD team was here, requesting to take her in. I refused, called security. They didn't have a warrant or anything, so they couldn't force their way in and had to leave. The next day, she'd been formally dismissed, and her security clearance revoked. You never told me what it was you did, but I'm pretty smart. You saw something, didn't you? Something so jarring you couldn't stay. I think now might be a good time to get chatty Babs."

"You don't want to know. Really, you don't want to have any idea of what I saw Lex. Even _you_ wouldn't stomach it." Her eyes were fixed on the floor now, Lena still rubbing her back.

"Its okay Babs. You don't have to…"

"No Lena," Kara said sternly, "We don't need details, but we need to know what we're getting into. If Alex is going to go work for them, if I'm even going to consider it, all cards need to be on the table."

She was right, regardless of how much she wanted to bury what she'd seen that day.

"It's called the Index," she murmured, "It's a list of all known… enhanced individuals… existing on Earth. A complete inventory of everything known about them. Their identities, addresses, families. How they got their powers, how they work, their strengths and weaknesses. They have DNA samples, recordings, character analysis, everything you can possibly have on a person. And… experimental data too."

"Ex…experimental?" Lena stuttered, "As in, they experimented on these people?"

Alex looked utterly repulsed, "And you suggested I go and work for these people?!"

"It's not a bad idea!" She snapped, her emotions whirling, head thumping. "Having a list of people with powers, knowing how to stop them should they turn on the public. It's necessary!"

"Experimenting on innocent people?!"

"THEY WEREN'T INNOCENT!" She screamed, and everyone flinched. Steadying herself, she took several deep breaths before going on.

"My team was sent to investigate a possible gifted. He was a psychopath, a serial killer. With _superpowers_. Can you imagine that? A rapist and a murderer, with telepathic powers. He could read your mind; control you. And you could do absolutely nothing to stop it."

Lena gripped Babs hand so tight it was like she was trying to literally squeeze comfort into her.

"We took him down, eventually. It was… messy. Then, the science teams arrived. We tried to destroy the body, erase him from existence. But orders came from high, I still don't know who sent them, to salvage the body and bring it back for study. Coulson – our SO – he was furious, he called the Director personally. I… I went up to one of the scientists, and he was talking to his friend about how fascinating being able to read someone's mind would be. The orders… they were to find a way of _weaponising_ what this monster could do. Do you know how sickening the sight of his… hideout… was? Seven girls, all below the age of thirteen, all of them brainwashed into thinking their abuser was their _father_ , and that they owed him their undying servitude. I… I threw up. I won't lie."

Everyone looked ill. Even Lex, who'd turned quite the shade of green. But she forged on. She would finish this horror story if it killed her.

"So I used the Virus. My bosses, they'd upgraded the security to keep me out. What they didn't know was that I never gave them the full program. I broke through their firewalls and found all SHIELD's files on enhanced humans, and I destroyed all the research into power replication and weaponisation. I erased the identities of those people who lived their lives in secret, wiped all evidence connecting other superheroes to their SHIELD profiles, but I left the dangerous ones. I'm not ashamed of it. Then I left. I called Lex, resigned, and was on a plane back to the US within an hour."

She took a deep breath, and pulled her hand free of Lena's, wiping her tears away. Then she looked Kara in the eyes.

"The Index isn't a bad thing. But they will test you… like we did… to find out how you do what you do. They'll be trying to figure out how to stop you, even now. It's up to you to decide if that's a bad thing. But… I think you shouldn't let SHIELD anywhere near you, Kara. You're _amazing_ —a hero. Don't let SHIELD, or government bureaucrats, pollute that. But Alex, I think SHIELD is the best possible place you could go. The DEO, and Hank Henshaw, they're good people. The kind you trust. You can protect people like Kara does. And… well, if you do get yourself in trouble, Supergirl is only a call away."

Barbara stood up and left the room.

They all sat there in a sort of frozen silence, digesting that, for minutes. Until the elevator opened, revealing Lex's head assistant, Eve Tessmacher.

"Mr Luthor, Miss Luthor… um… Supergirl… you should really see this." She walked, keeping an eye on Kara all the time, towards the window. She opened the door to the balcony, and the chanting began to echo through the room.

"Supergirl!"

"Supergirl!"

"Supergirl!"

"We love you, Supergirl!"

"Thank you Supergirl!"

Hesitantly, Kara made her way over to the railing – still dented slightly from the other day – the others following behind. Crowds of people surrounded the tower, holding up signs and placing candles, all of them calling out her name.

"Supergirl!"

* * *

Barbara slammed the door on her room shut and used her phone to place the floor on lockdown – killing all surveillance and alarms. Then she dialled a number she hadn't called in years.

" _Hello?"_

"Coulson, its Oracle."

_"Agent Gordon. I hadn't expected to hear from you so soon."_

Babs made her way into the bathroom – whole body still trembling from telling her story. She stepped up to the sink and took one of her nail-implements.

"She won't do it, but I think you knew that. I also think you know that I'm not going to just sit back and let my best-friend be drafted into the DEO."

She used the metal filament to chip away at the side of her mirror, revealing a thin metal pin. She removed it with the tweezers, and one of the floor tiles clicked out of place.

"Here is my counter offer. In exchange for leaving Supergirl alone to become the symbol of hope that the Earth needs, you get Alex – which I'm sure Director Henshaw will be ecstatic about – and you get me."

She moved the tile out of the way, revealing a retinal scanner. She scanned her eye, and, finally, the post on the left corner of her bed slid open. She stood up and walked over to it.

_"I can convince Fury to back that. But while I would love to have you back Barbara, and you're right in saying that Hank very much wants Agent Danvers on his team, it's not going to be enough to satisfy the Security Council."_

Inside a tiny metal nook, was a data-core smaller than her fingertip. Emblazoned on the top was the image of an eagle within a circle.

"I know. Which is why, if they agree to leave Supergirl and the Luthors alone, I'll give them the Index."

_"You destroyed the Index. To be honest, I can't entirely blame you for it either. I slept easier after you did what you did."_

"I kept a copy. Tell them they can have it all. But if they double-cross me, I _end_ them."

Coulson was silent for a few seconds.

_"Agreed."_

He hung up, and she let out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding. Whole-body trembling, she collapsed onto her bed and curled up into a ball. She would do anything to protect her family. _Anything._ But that didn't mean she hated herself any less.

* * *

## February 20th, 2002; SHIELD Academy, Location: Classified

19-year-old Barbara Gordon slung her backpack over her shoulder, whistling softly to herself as she exited a bathroom in the SHIELD Academy of Sciences. The second she stepped into the hallway, a hand shot out from nowhere, wrapping around her mouth. A sharp stinging jabbed her stomach, and darkness overtook her.

When she came too, she was in a dank room with six other people – four girls all younger than her, a woman in her thirties, and a boy about the same age she was. The floor was concrete, the walls and roof too. The only light came from the hallway beyond the one wall that wasn't solid – it was obscured by metal bars instead. A prison cell. Rubbing her head, she hesitantly rose to her feet.

"Are you okay?" The woman asked. Barbara pulled up her jumper – she was still wearing the clothes she'd been wearing in the school – and ran a hand along a small electrical burn on her lower abdomen. Nothing to worry about, she'd suffered far worse during her years on the streets of Suicide Slum.

"Fine. I take it this is our exam?"

"Exam?" the woman asked incredulously. "We were _abducted_ by terrorists! You think this is an exam?!"

_Ah_ , so that was the simulation. A terrorist situation. Only this place seemed too clean for the Middle East. She must still be in Europe or America – assuming she wasn't just in a simulator. Barbara ignored the woman, instead stepping up to the cell door and peering out. Two guards stood at the end of the hallway, whispering to one another in Russian.

Barbara wasn't stupid. She'd known her life wouldn't be the same the second she received the invitation to join the SHIELD Academy. But she'd also seen how incredible the world could be, and no one could show her that better than SHIELD. So she'd come to the Academy, and she'd learned. Now, she put those skills to the test.

Carefully, she reached through the grate and felt at the lock. It was built into the door itself, rather than an external padlock or bolt. Bugger. It was times like this when she really wished she had Kara's superstrength.

Pursing her lips, she turned back to the cell. It was a small space, with barely enough room to house all its occupants. No windows, no air vents. The kids were all in different states of malnourishment, with one girl with matted blonde hair definitely the worst of the lot. The smell was terrible as well, but, again, Babs had smelt far worse sleeping behind Samwell's Diner. It had been a favoured haunt of hers, with most not going near it because of the butchery next door. Compared with the smell of rotted offcuts, a little body odour was nothing. But, here was the interesting thing. There was a toilet seat in the cell. Battered and old, but it was there. She stepped up to it, ignoring the woman – who was telling her to stop moving lest she call the guards – and the boy, who was staring at her curiously. She placed her hand on the outside of the bowl, and felt… thumping. Active plumbing. Good. That meant there was a mechanism to flush the waste.

This was an exam. An exam she had been anticipating for weeks now. That meant there was a way to get out of here – though it wouldn't be easy. Fortunately, Babs had been studying how to escape from prison cells – not to mention, she'd committed her fair share of robberies. Her father – the Metropolis Police Commissioner – would be incredibly disappointed in his daughter she knew. But he'd gone and gotten himself killed when she was eight, so she didn't really care what he thought.

A hand grabbed her shoulder.

"I said, leave it alone! Do you want to call those guards down on…" She grabbed the woman's wrist and twisted, snapping it. Then she shoved her back to the floor. The kids whimpered and muttered, but didn't scream out. They had been beaten down too far for that.

"Shut up and let me work," she hissed. Then she reached for the bottom of her shirt and pulled both it and her jumper over her head. The room was far colder than she'd thought it would be, though there was no air circulation. Underground perhaps? Regardless, she reached behind her back and unfastened her bra. Being sure to stay bent over and pointed away from the others, she removed the garment and – trying to quash the embarrassment factor – scrutinised the clasp. It was larger than most bra clasps, but that was very much intentional. You couldn't hide something in a small flimsy plastic one. She removed the covering, and the Luthor Core was right where she'd hidden it.

Barbara would be the first to admit that she wasn't a genius. She wasn't a molecular biologist like her best friend Jemma Simmons, or an experimental physicist like her other best friend Leopold Fitz. That didn't mean she wasn't smart – you had to be freakishly smart to get into SHIELD in the first place. She was an exceptional engineer – the benefits of growing up around Lex fucking Luthor – in both software and hardware. But her real talent was with computers. Programming, software design, hacking, if it could be done with code, she was a master at it. She had built the Oracle Virus – the world's most advanced piece of code – at sixteen. A virus capable of bypassing any firewall. A virus that used a pattern scan of her very brain as its core programming. No one had been able to stop the program, because it wasn't merely a piece of code you could counter. It was as complicated as a human mind. She had done that all by herself. And no one could replicate it either – because you needed her brain to do it. She wasn't a genius – but she was smart enough to never go anywhere without her best tool.

The Luthor Core, on the other hand, was Lex's masterpiece, a microchip that could interface with any piece of technology. But, she had redesigned this chip herself to do what she needed it to do.

She tagged the Core onto the bowl of the toilet and waited.

Without the Core Remote or a computer, she couldn't use the chip to upload the Virus – it was a _toilet_ after all. But what the tag would do was interrupt the plumbing as it tried to sync to technology that wasn't there. And that would…

Footsteps. She pulled her shirt and jumper back on, then resumed her position crouched on the floor as two men, dressed all in black, approached the door.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" The man on the left said, hitting the cell door with his fist. The other prisoners all started crying, retreating into the corner furthest from both the door and Barbara. Barbara remained crouched and tried to fiddle with the tag. She didn't think she was very convincing, but the guards did, as they opened the cell door and moved towards her. Barbara lashed out with her leg, knocking back the first man, then she punched the second man in the balls. She sprang to her feet and grabbed the sidearm from the man's holster. She slammed it into the man's gut, then rolled away. The first man recovered, but it was too late. She fired, taking him in the side. He dropped, and she pounced on him, slamming the weapon into his head, knocking him out. The second guard tried to get up, but he was cradling his balls with one hand – not a trained soldier – and she sent him into unconsciousness too.

Slowly, she rose to full height and released a long shaky breath. Nine months of training to take down armed assailants. Nine months of strength and fitness training she hadn't thought her body could even _handle_. But… well, apparently, she'd learned something. She stared at the gun in her hand in shock, until the crying of the prisoners brought her back to the moment.

Taking a breath, she retrieved her bra and the Luthor Core. Then she turned to the prisoners.

"Do you want out of here or what?" She barked, then she retrieved the keys from one of the men and exited the cell. No alarms blared. She should have a few minutes before the guards had to check-in, and security discovered her escape. The question was, what was her objective? Was it simply to escape? Or did she have another task…

In the next cell, over from her was someone she recognised. Lance Hunter. He was an Operations student, training to be a Combat Specialist.

"You stuck in this sim too?" He asked, stepping up to the cell door with a cocky grin.

"Yep. Don't suppose you have a directive, do you?"

"I was told to wait for a contact, then escort them to the central control centre. You Barbara Gordon by any chance?"

"Better believe it," she said, then unlocked the door. The other prisoners had not followed her out of the cell.

He stepped out, and she offered him the weapon, but he shook his head.

"I'll get my own." Then he frowned, seeing the open door. "How did you…"

"I'm very crafty," she told him, then, without a glance backward, they marched down the hallway.

Three other cells were occupied – two full of women, one with two men in it. Babs insisted on unlocking each door and giving them all the opportunity to leave, but none took it. Figuring she'd given them a chance, and that trying to force them would just endanger their mission, she dismissed them and followed Lance. He seemed to respect her for that.

They reached the door, standing backs against the wall. She clicked off the safety and nodded to Lance, then he opened the door and slipped inside. Immediately, yells erupted from beyond the portal, followed by the sounds of bones breaking. Barbara ducked in behind Lance, and she shot one guard who was trying to sneak up on her companion from behind, but otherwise, she didn't help much – he was simply that good.

Once Lance had subdued the four guards in what must have been a break room – judging by the tables, chairs and bunkbeds – they crossed to the other side, Lance retrieving a gun and extra mags from one of the fallen guards.

"So, is it Bobbi? Barbs? Barbie…"

"Babs. And no, I'm not dating you."

He smirked slightly. "I think my wife would have something to say if I tried that. Her name's Barbara too, hence the reason I asked."

"Ah."

She and Lance moved into the next hallway, which, thankfully, was empty. Lance shot out the security camera the second they entered.

"Which one is this for you?" he asked as they approached a metal staircase.

"First. They do this often?"

"This is my third. I'm in my second year at Ops. I think we get more use out of it than the other Academies."

"Makes sense," she agreed, "What actually _is_ it?"

He laughed, "Wait and see. I'm not spoiling anything."

He put a foot on the step and winced at the soft sound it made.

"Bugger. Keep your steps soft. One at a time. Hold my six, alarms should be going any minute." He led the way up the staircase, and all their talking ceased. Sure enough, an alarm started ringing when they reached the third floor up. She assumed Lance knew the floor plan of this place, as he seemed to know exactly where he was going.

Five floors up, he kicked open a door and shot three people on the other side. Babs followed and took in their assailants. Caucasian, reasonably tall and well built. They were definitely underground as well because she'd yet to see a window.

"Soviet-era base, Eastern Europe probably," She whispered, "Russian sponsored insurgents maybe, or ex KGB affiliates."

He nodded, but said nothing, instead discarding his weapon and taking a semi-automatic from one of the downed men. Babs grabbed an extra mag from one of them as well. Finally, they reached a bulkhead door.

"Can you crack it?" He asked, gesturing to the keypad lock on the outside.

"Cover me." She placed her pistol on the ground, and pulled off the cover of the panel, exposing the wires beneath. Boots thudded on the ground, shouting echoing off the concrete walls. She grabbed two wires, crossing them, before pulling a pin and moving it between ports. Lance opened fire behind her, and she winced at the kickback, trying to focus on her work. _'The input needs to be routed around the door mechanism, force a security open…'_ She switched two more brackets, and Lance pivoted, aiming down the T-junction to fire on two men coming up behind them. Two bullets ricocheted off the door above her, but she ignored them and the rising beat of her heart. _Come on…_

The door clicked, then slid open. She shoved Lance to the floor, just in time to miss the barrage of bullets that came out the open door. He pushed her off, then aimed through the door and fired wildly. Then he rolled forward and dove for cover behind a desk inside. Babs retrieved her pistol and fired back into the hall, taking out a man who'd rushed around to take advantage of the distraction.

Legs shaking with adrenaline, she rose slowly to her feet, trying to still her heavy breathing.

"Clear!" Lance said, and she followed him inside. She used the panel on this side to lock the door, then turned to see five guys lying on the floor in puddles of blood. One of them was Lance.

"Shit!" She exclaimed, kneeling beside him. He was leaning up against the same console, and blood was seeping through a hole in his side. He groaned in pain, shaking his head.

"Yep. Gonna lose marks for that," he hissed.

"Who cares about marks! You've been shot!"

"Finish the mission," he snapped. I'll hold the door. GO!" She jerked backward at his tone, then did as she was told. Moving up to the central console, she scanned the half-dozen screens showing layouts of the facility and security camera feeds until she found the main terminal. She withdrew the Luthor Core from her pocket and slapped it onto the hard-drive. Immediately, the machine booted up, and Babs began typing rows of code. She'd been right. The computer language defaulted to Russian. Within seconds, the Oracle Virus imprinted on the Core had uploaded to the system, and she'd broken through the password and into the secure network. She retrieved a disk-drive from a shelf behind her and plugged it in, then set the Virus to search for anything irregular in the facility files. If she was supposed to extract something, she imagined it would be… Bingo!

_‘File Ex-08417: SHIELD mission index 957376cxv.’_

A SHIELD mission file, on a Russian computer. That didn't bode well. She downloaded the data, as well as any document that mentioned the mission key, then she sent the building into lockdown – except for a set path to the exit one floor above – and wiped the server. She retrieved the hard-disk and the Luthor Core, then moved back to Lance.

"Data secure. Let's get out of here." He nodded, and she helped him to his feet.

They hobbled back to the staircase – thankfully without meeting any other guards – and Babs helped Lance up to the top floor. Here, five men and a woman waited for them, each carrying full automatic weaponry. Babs and Lance split to either side of the corridor, keeping hidden behind the wall. She ignored Lance's wince of pain as he tried to keep himself upright.

"Five," she whispered, "Four, three, two, one…" The alarms shut off abruptly, and in the brief second the guards were disorientated by the sudden lack of sound, she and Lance rounded the corner and opened fire. She shot one in the chest and another in the leg as he moved out of the way. Lance hit the other four – downing three but only grazing the fourth. Babs ducked back around the corner, but wasn't fast enough to avoid taking a hit to the shoulder as shots peppered the concrete behind her. Lance tried another shot, and just missed taking a bullet to the head. But he did it, sending the two final guards to the ground.

Babs bit down on her lip to distract herself from the burning pain in her shoulder, and spun around the wall, gun trained on the fallen men. She advanced rapidly down the hallway and kicked the weapons away from two of the men. She stepped on one for good measure.

Lance made his way down the corridor, using the wall to support him. When he reached her, she took his arm around her shoulder, and he smiled gratefully. She opened the exit… and everything vanished in a flash of bright white light.

When the glare finally cleared from her eyes, she found herself in a giant dome with bright white panelled walls – electrodes fastened to each corner. It was easily the size of a football field, and just as tall.

"What the fuck?" she breathed. A door slid open in the wall on the far side of the room, and three nurses rushed out with stretchers. She lowered Lance down onto one, and he grinned stupidly at her.

"Told you it was cool," he said. She couldn't help but nod dumbly. She sat down on the second stretcher, and a nurse began working on her shoulder. He handed her a green whistle, and she took a puff, then released a long breath.

"Nice job Gordon. You should have joined Ops," Lance said as they were wheeled towards the door. She closed her eyes as the morphine began to flood her system, and the adrenaline proceeded to ebb away, leaving her tired to her very bones.

"No, thank you," she said softly, "That, was utterly _terrifying._ "

"He's right, though. You did very well out there," a new voice said. One she didn't recognise. She cracked her eyes back open and came face to face with a man with thin blonde hair and a rectangular face, wearing a suit and tie. He looked down at his clipboard and pointed at several things she couldn't see.

"Cell escape… very well handled. Fastest time in two years, though, I should point out you weren't exactly supposed to have access to any technology." He stared at her pointedly. "That being said, the fact that you were prepared enough to have that on you, and nobody _caught_ it when we checked you – and believe me, we checked – means as far as I'm concerned, you get bonus marks."… _Yay?_ She'd gotten fucking _shot!_

"Following instruction from a senior agent: A+. Moral code: B+. Good call on not trying to force the other hostages out of the cells. The boy was a plant who would have stabbed you in the back and raised the alarm." She resisted the urge to blanch at that. "But, you _did_ release two serial killers back into the wild, so points off for that."

"Serial killers?" she exclaimed before she could stop herself.

"The two men. If you had looked closely enough, you would have recognised one of them from the SHIELD list of most-wanted, and their clothes and temperaments should have been an indication of possible hostility." He flipped the page, and Barbara slumped. She had missed that?

"Marksmanship – Sci-Tech: Solid A. Willingness to risk oneself to help your partner; proficiently demonstrated. Ability to act cool and find a technological solution to a problem under fire: A+. Awareness: A. Computer science skills: A+. Data examination and extraction: A++. You set a new record for that one actually; the fastest since Romanov. Quite impressive."

This time her jaw really did fall open. This man must be a high-level agent. She had set a _record?_

"You didn't leave your partner behind when he was injured – you'd be surprised how many people fail that one – and kept your head as you escorted him to the surface. Finally, pain threshold. Could be better, but you maintained focus and remained on mission, which is more than many can say. All in all, that's an A grade. For your first time in the Arena, that's an incredibly good score, Miss Gordon." The agent folded his clipboard against his chest and stared at her inquisitively.

"Miss Gordon, have you thought about what you want to do at SHIELD once you finish your training?" Babs was struggling a bit to think straight with the morphine in her system and the nurses cutting away the shoulder of her blood-soaked shirt to clean the wound.

"Um… I mean… not particularly. I was kind of more concerned with trying to survive the classes, to be honest." The agent chuckled.

"Me too. But don't worry, things get a lot easier now. We have to push you hard the first year, so we can weed out the people who aren't here for the right reasons. Have a think about it. If you want my opinion, sign up for some communications and ops electives. Don't get sucked into the trap of only studying your best field. You might be great at Computer Science and Engineering, but you could also be a good analyst or a good fighter. Those are the types of qualities I look for in Field Agents."

"Who are you, sir?"

He smiled at her then, a kindly smile. "My name is Phil Coulson, Agent of SHIELD. If you decide you want to get out of the lab and into the field, give me a call. And you can tell your friends Fitz and Simmons the same thing." He winked at her, then turned on his heel and walked away, leaving the nurses to fuss over her as Barbara's head continued to spin.

* * *

## The Present Day…

Kara dropped from the sky, leaving a crater in the concrete.

"False God!"

"God can't commit crimes!"

"Witch!"

"You can't try a God!"

"Down with Luthor!"

"Godless whore!"

"Hail the Queen!"

"Murderer!"

Crowds of protestors filled the streets surrounding the Metropolis County Supreme Court – a towering building in the Ancient Greek style. Two opposing armies gathered in the heart of Kara's own city – one fighting for her freedom, the other warring for her immediate slaughter. She couldn't help noticing that the people supporting her were far more numerous than those trying to have her executed. It seemed her followers of all colours had put aside their differences to temporarily unite against Lex. The man she considered her brother. The man who'd tried to kill her.

Kara rose to her full height, hair floating slightly, cape ruffling in the wind. It was a bizarre part of her powers. Her body absorbed solar energy, then used it as fuel to project it into her own gravitational field. As a result, she could lift objects ten times her size without tearing them apart, her skin was impenetrable, she could fly, and her hair _levitated_.

"Supergirl! Supergirl!"

"Praise be to Her!"

"False God!"

"Hail to the Queen!"

Kara strode forward, boots clinking as she mounted the steps. Armed men stood guard at the door, and as she approached, every one of them saluted her. She nodded to each in turn, then strode inside.

Most people, when they came into a courtroom to testify, were escorted. Living gods – such as herself – were not escorted anywhere.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all the folks in America... We might not be able to vote and help you out, but for what it's worth, good luck from the Land Down Under.
> 
> Sorry, this took so long. We should be getting back to regular updates very soon!

# Chapter Six: The Defender of Earth

## May 4th, 2008; Redden State Forest, 30km Southeast of Metropolis.

“Lex, what are we doing out here?” Lena asked as she closed the door of the limousine. Lex ignored her, instead turning to the driver.

“Stay here.”

“Yes, sir.” Lex nodded, then beckoned for Lena to follow him away from the service road and into the forest.

“Lex…” Lena moaned, drawing the word out. Lex remained quiet until he was confident he was out of earshot of the driver. Only then did he speak.

“I’ve spent the last few months combing through any and all unnatural extra-planetary events,” he said, leading her onwards. Lena sighed dramatically.

“Seriously, Lex? This hypothesis again? There’s no proof…”

“Which is why I went looking for some,” he retorted. He was sure he was right. There was no other reasonable explanation. Kara Zor El was an alien. And he thought he’d finally found out how she got to Earth.

“Regardless,” he continued, “I searched through every recorded detection of an object crashing to Earth from space – not an easy task I might add – in the decade of the 1980s. Based on Kara’s limited recollection, I am certain that the ’80s is the time period during which she arrived on Earth.”

“Ok, let’s assume you’re right. How much space junk fell back to Earth in the 80’s alone?” Lena said, tripping over a fallen tree branch. Lex kept walking, though he did slow down slightly so she could catch back up.

“Over 2000 pieces. However, if that number is adjusted to only include objects with projected landing sights within 200 kilometres of Metropolis, that number falls to just three. And in 1987 – exactly five years before we met Kara for the first time – an object, believed to be an old Soviet Satellite, crashed into the Atlantic off the Delaware coast. Visual confirmation of a fireball streaking across the sky proves it.”

Lex and Lena continued their journey onwards, trekking through the woods as the trees began to close in around them.

“However, using my own satellites, as well as analysis of footage of the event, I extrapolated that the object, whatever it may be, did not land in the ocean as assumed. Rather, it should have crashed right here…” The pair pushed through one final grove of trees, coming face to face with something that almost had Lex jumping up and down in joy. A crater, in the middle of the forest. Nothing natural could have made this.

“Oh my god…” Lena breathed. Lex hurried down the slope and towards the centre. There appeared to be nothing of note at first glance – other than the indentation the size of a house in the otherwise untouched forest of course. No signs of metal or any other man-made substance. Not that Lex has been expecting any. Decades of rainfall would have washed away anything on the surface. But he was Lex Luthor. He would not be defeated by simple rain.

He pulled out his phone – ingenious things, these iPhones. He’d taken apart the one he’d bought and upgraded it beyond anything a simple mind like Jobs could come up with, but still, impressive. And popular. Lex would never have guessed the fortune that was the newly emerging ‘smartphone’ industry. Perhaps he should get in on it?

But for now, the modified phone did its work. He ran the phone/scanner along the ground, making rounds of the crater as Lena stood on the lip, shock written across her face.

Finally, near the dead centre, he found what he was looking for. A radiation signature. One that didn’t match anything he’d ever seen before—something… out of this world.

“I’ve found it,” he whispered to himself.

He didn’t see all the colour leave Lena’s face, nor did he notice when she fled back the way they came until several minutes later.

* * *

## The Present Day…

“When did Mr and Miss Luthor make you aware of their discovery Agent Danvers?” Lucy asked critically.

This Alex could answer honestly.

“They didn’t. I only learned about the ship after Lex attacked Metropolis.”

“And why is that?”

“Because they didn’t trust me, and rightfully so. By not telling me, Lena and Lex didn’t put me in the position of having to lie to my superiors,” Alex said, shifting her tone to imply that she thought Lucy was an idiot for asking such an obvious question. It worked, and Lucy narrowed her eyes, hands clenching around the clipboard.

“And when was Miss Zor El told?” Alex opened her mouth to answer, then stopped, eyes following the rush of movement in the reporter’s gallery above.

“… I think you may just want to ask her yourself, Miss Lane…”

The giant oaken doors at the back of the hall swung open…

* * *

## May 12th, 2008: Sichuan Province, China.

An ear-shattering _‘crack!’_ echoed across the sky, and Juan jolted back from his scrutiny of the city maps. His men, surveyors and emergency response teams, had just brought him back a series of updated reports on the most damaged sections of this city – which had been torn apart by a 7.2 magnitude Earthquake not a few hours before.

Fearing the worst, he rushed out of the makeshift command centre in the town square and looked up to the sky, mirroring the actions of many others. That noise had sounded too much like a gunshot…

A pinprick above the city immediately came clearer into view, increasing in size at an alarming rate. Juan’s heart leapt into his throat, and he took an involuntary step back. Was this the end then? Who had sent this weapon? Why? Hadn’t they been through enough? A hundred deaths had already been reported, and hundreds more were sure to follow.

“Get back! Missile!” One of the other men, a party liaison, cried out. Screams erupted, followed by trampling as people fled the square. Not that it would do them any good. Juan had seen the damage such weapons could do. So had the man who stepped up beside him. His best friend, Zhi Lao. They didn’t need to speak to know what the other was thinking.

The object came closer and closer, until, in the last brief moments before the end, Juan caught a flash of red.

A woman, dressed in blue and gold armour, with red boots, a red cape, and a red S glyph on her chest, landed in the middle of the square – cracking the cobblestones. She stood up, pulling her shoulders back and flaring her hair behind her, where it floated slightly despite the absence of any breeze.

“My…” Juan couldn’t even come up with something to swear by he was so stunned.

“Captains,” the woman exclaimed in passing Mandarin, though the accent was American, “I am Supergirl, and I’m here to help. Point me to where the greatest problem is.”

_Supergirl._ The protector. The hero. The maiden warrior.

Juan had heard talk of her. The mysterious Kara Zor El, who had been seen helping people across the globe. Stopping natural disasters, taking down terrorist cells, saving people from burning buildings. Juan had thought it a hoax. A grand lie. A story told to raise one’s spirits. Heroes did not exist in such a world. A woman who could fly and lift planes? That couldn’t be true. And yet here she stood, asking to help.

Juan, mastering his shock – and his fear – stepped forward.

“Supergirl. There is a school, right on the fault line. There are students trapped inside. It is too dangerous for us to go in… but if you can enter without disturbing the ground…”

“I can. Thank you, Sir. Show me where this place is. Quickly, before more innocent lives are lost.”

Juan rushed to get his maps and pointed out the location. Supergirl nodded, then shot back into the sky.

Juan took a long breath. And then he smiled. So much for stories. Perhaps… perhaps believing in heroes wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

* * *

Kara flew to the location the captain had pointed out, and sure enough, right on the fault line, was a school surrounded by emergency vehicles. She landed in the middle of several men dressed in firefighter fatigues. It wasn’t the most elegant of entrances, but she found a grand display often jolted people into action quicker, and those kids needed her to move fast.

“What’s the situation?” She asked. Her Mandarin wasn’t excellent, but she could string together sentences reasonably well. She’d spent several months in China in ’03.

After a few seconds, one of the men explained things to her. According to the heat scans, there were several groups of children and staff still trapped inside, but the responders couldn’t risk disturbing the ground by deploying their equipment.

“I’ll get as many out as I can,” she said, before taking off and flying carefully up to the nearest window. She eased the windowpane out of its frame, before squeezing inside. Spindly cracks ran along the vinyl floor and the concrete walls; Lockers and posters thrown across the room. Using her hearing, she traced the first group to an amphitheatre near the centre of the campus. She opened the door, being sure not to touch the floor, and immediately called down to the fifty or so students clustered in the centre of a stage at the bottom of the room.

“Stay still! I’ll fly down and get you. Don’t move!”

The students and the two adult staff members with them, all stared up at Kara in awe. Yeah… she was getting used to that. She glided down and selected the person who looked the youngest – a girl of perhaps nine with long black hair. She held out her hands to the girl, palms up, and she hesitantly took them. Then Kara floated up slightly, bringing the girl with her. She screamed, but not in fear. No, the expression on the girl’s face was one of pure joy.

Kara pulled the girl tight to her chest and whispered, “Hold tight.” Then she travelled back the way she’d come and deposited the girl with the medics. She returned to grab the next person, repeating the same process each time. By the fourth kid – a tall boy of perhaps sixteen – they had begun forming a line with a person at the edge of the stage with hands outstretched waiting for her. It certainly made the process faster.

She repeated this for three more groups of students, removing about three hundred in about thirty minutes. It was slower than she’d like, but she couldn’t risk her gravity field disturbing the newly settled ground.

Finally, she lowered the last person – a teacher with greying hair – to the ground and landed, taking a deep breath as she turned back to the school.

“I can’t hear anyone else inside, but I counted about fifteen dead in the corridors,” she said.

The teacher clapped, and the students all broke out in applause and cheers of a single word. She supposed the closest translation would be… “Super-One.”

Blushing at the praise, she made her way over to the Captain she’d met on her first landing. He’d apparently made his way over.

“Where to next?”

* * *

## May 15th, 2008: LCorp RnD Facility, New Jersey

_(Everything is legal in New Jersey_ ;D )

Lena stood beside Lex, who was practically bouncing on his toes with excitement, as an enormous truck drove into LCorp’s underground RnD garage. She refused to call it a lair. That just felt incredibly tacky.

The truck came to a stop beneath several dozen cranes, and Lex rushed towards the operators’ panel giving rapid-fire instructions as he went. Lena just stood there in the middle of the floor. Watching as the cranes disassembled the truck roof and walls, revealing something… impossible.

A fuselage twice as long as Lena was tall, built from a metal that didn’t even exist on the periodic table. Some transparent metallic substance that had no molecular resemblance to glass covered the cockpit, inside of which was a red chair lined with electrodes, and a console of sorts.

The craft was incredibly damaged. One side of the ship had been seemingly melted away, and the console was completely fried. Black scorch marks covered both the inside and outside of the craft, and what they assumed was where the engine _had_ been, was just a mangled cylindrical thruster shell. Protruding from the main body were two stumps of metal with incredibly intricate wiring hanging loose from the severed ends. They’d theorised these might be some sort of solar-panels that had disintegrated upon entry.

The cranes began carefully lifting the ship from the bed as another truck rolled in. This one contained everything else of interest from the crash site. Any loose pieces of metal, some bizarre plant life that had sprung up around the crater, vast chunks of irradiated soil, and, oddest of all, a green crystalline substance they’d found scattered and buried deep underground.

Lex returned to her side as the ship was craned away to be studied and dissected.

Lena swallowed.

“We should put together a model. Calculate the entry vector, and use that to calculate a… a possible origin point,” she whispered, barely able to believe the words were coming out of her mouth. Her sister was an _alien_.

“It’s already running,” Lex said, grin still etched across his face. He offered his arm to her.

“Shall we?”

She took his arm and let him steer her away towards the lab.

* * *

## May 17th, 2008: Paris, France

Kara dropped from the sky, cracking bitumen. A semi-trailer _smashed_ into her, crumpling on impact. The momentum of the crash threw the rear of the truck almost completely vertical in the air, groaning under its own weight. Then it crashed to the ground, and Kara turned her eyes on the driver. A man in a black ski-mask was looking dazed as he sat at the wheel, his companion trying desperately to deal with the airbag that had burst in his face.

A white van drove past the now stationary truck, and Kara spun on it, releasing two quick consecutive blasts of heat vision. She took out both tires on the side closest to her, and the van ground to a halt, skidding around in an arc as the tires on the other side tried to propel the vehicle forward. One of the doors flew open, and a woman took aim at Kara with a semi-automatic. Kara rolled her eyes, then raced towards the woman, disarming her, the few bullets she’d been able to fire crushing on impact with Kara’s skin.

She’d learned not to let people take shots at her from a distance if she could avoid it. While she and her bad-ass outfit were invulnerable, that didn’t stop shrapnel from deflecting off her body. Nor did it do anything for bad guys with shit aim.

Kara pulled the woman out of the car and threw her onto the road. Then she grabbed the driver of the vehicle before he could run away.

“Now, now. We can’t have that. There’s a lovely cell waiting for you in prison, and considering the effort that went into preparing it for you, it would just be rude for you not to visit.” Two cop cars came flying down the road, skidding to a stop. Three guys ran out, pistols raised. To their credit, they only gawked at her for a second before getting to work. One bent down and cuffed the two goons, while Kara walked with the others to the back of the truck.

“What’s inside?” Kara asked them.

“Dispatch says it’s a shipment of vaccines bound for the suburbs,” one of the cops, a man with sick braids, stated, voice gruff.

“Good thing I was in the neighbourhood then,” Kara said. They rounded the back, and the two men targeted the door as two more cars pulled up at the end of the street. Behind the truck, a traffic jam was beginning to form, people getting out of their cars to yell. As soon as they saw the cape and the cops, all whining stopped, replaced with hushed whispers to get phones and cameras out.

Kara looked to the cops for permission to open the door, and they gave it. She gestured for them to step aside, then grabbed the handles and yanked it open. Gunfire instantly filled the street, and Kara spun around, jumping into the air and flaring her cape to either side of her. The bullet-proof fabric caught the bullets, and she stayed in the position until their clips ran out. Then she dove into the truck and grabbed two men by the scruffs of their necks. She dropped to the ground for the two policemen as another group of cops ran towards them.

“We’ve got this Supergirl. Thanks for the assist,” the man with the braids said, winking at her. She flashed him a smile, then nodded to the crowd, before shooting back into the sky.  
  


* * *

## May 19th, 2008: LCorp RnD, New Jersey

“Lena! The model is complete, come and see!” Lex shouted, and Lena grabbed her tablet and raced over to Lex’s console as he cast the render to the enlarged overhead screen.

The screen started with satellite images of a fireball across Metropolis, rewinding, a tiny green blip representing Kara’s… Kara’s _pod_ , leaving the atmosphere and flying out into space.

“This is assuming the pod maintained some sort of constant speed. The engineers are relatively confident in saying the ship was powered by solar energy; which in turn fuelled the ships now non-existent engine and the cryogenic drive that kept Kara asleep during transit.” The blip slowly moved away from the solar system, and a count of years slowly began ticking up in the corner. Five, ten, twenty, fifty…

“Any luck on those crystals?” he asked, and she handed him her tablet.

“Sort of. I’ve isolated the chemical formula. It’s a form of Krypton Hydride but fused with atoms of the same mystery metal alloyed in the structure of Kara’s pod. It’s highly radioactive, and prolonged exposure would undoubtedly cause cancer, radiation sickness, and other diseases typical of such exposure. But the interesting thing is that the material, which I’m calling Kryptonite because of the crystalline structure, gives off its radiation at a specific wavelength that causes immediate electromagnetic degradation to its surroundings. The higher the wavelength, the faster the degradation. It’s why all the plants around the crash site were either dead or mutated. It was literally bleached of UV, and it eats through the physical and infrared spectrums too.”

“Interesting,” Lex said, pursing his lips as his eyes flickered between the tablet and the screen. One hundred years, five hundred years, one thousand years… The blip had now left the solar-system entirely behind, drifting through empty space, pace retracing.

“Any practical applications?”

“Maybe as an alternate energy source, but we’d run out fast, and the radiation is obviously a considerable factor.”

“Hmm. Best lock it away for now then. Have the crystals moved down to a secure lead and concrete vault.”

“Agreed,” Lena said, making a note on her tablet. Good. She wanted as far away from those glowing space-rocks as she could get.

The screen dinged, and Lex and Lena turned back towards the icon.

_‘Point of Origin: M-class red-supergiant star in the Cygnus constellation, 1,525 lightyears from Earth. Total time elapsed: thirteen thousand years.’_

“My god,” Lena muttered.

Lex pulled out his phone. “Hello, NASA Administrator? This is Lex Luthor. I need to borrow the Hubble Space Telescope…”

* * *

## May 24th, 2008: Chicago, Illinois, The United States

Adam Stephenson stood in the middle of the road, arms crossed. Beside him were his brothers and sisters. They stood silent and still, thousands of people in the middle of the road. They didn’t speak. They didn’t wave signs. They’d tried that. Nothing changed. Maybe… maybe this would be different. Adam didn’t think so. If he was honest… he didn’t think there was anything that could be done in his lifetime.

On the other side of the street, police dressed in riot gear formed a line. Behind them, sirens flashed red, white and blue.

Adam had grown up on stories of his father. He was a soldier. A man proud to wear those stripes. He had enlisted out of a sense of duty _to_ those three colours and the people who wore them. He had been a man of faith. A believer in hope. His father before him had marched just like Adam was now. For the same cause.

Adam’s father had been a man of faith. He’d served his country in three wars. Then he’d come home, and been shot dead by a man wearing the red, white and blue.

Adam wasn’t a man of faith. Faith had failed him. _Hope_ had failed him. But he wasn’t a quitter. If God decided that Adam would be fighting for the same cause his grandfather had, and his grandfather had, and his grandfather had… then that was the path he would follow. Regardless of how it ended.

Adam was not a man of faith. But he could trust in himself. He could trust in the men and women standing beside him. And he could trust in the woman whose hand sat in his.

He looked to her out of the corner of his eye, marvelling at her orange hair and pale skin. She stared down the line of men with their guns and their gas and their badges with passion and fury in her gaze.

Demi was not a woman of faith either. She couldn’t bring herself to believe in God. To her, Destiny was an excuse used to justify too many acts of horror and death. Adam could respect that. Understand it. But she believed in him, and to Adam, that meant more than anything else in the world.

A woman from CNN stood behind Demi, hiding a video camera in her jacket.

“People!” a voice yelled through a megaphone, “This is a major roadway. Please disperse to allow the free-flow of traffic to resume!” Behind the hastily erected police barricade traffic was backed up for kilometres, the honking of car horns the only sound puncturing the otherwise still air.

Adam took a deep breath, squeezed his girlfriend’s hand, and stepped forward. Instantly, tasers and guns were raised. In the row behind, tear gas was prepared.

“Five African-American kids died this week in Chicago,” Adam called out, the reporter edging her camera out so she could see him. “Killed by police. Those kids won’t ever see any justice from the people who should be protect’ ng ’em. This is the closest they get. You tell the mayor that we want to know what he’s gonna do for our kids. Until then, this highway stays closed.”

“Sir, with all due respect, you have to move out of the way. Protest somewhere that doesn’t stop one of the largest roads in the city.”

They’d tried that. They’d just been ignored.

“Tell your men to disperse, or we will remove you ourselves,” the man with the loudspeaker said. He was a tall man, though still not as tall as Adam. He stood on the roof of a car, towering over police and protester alike.

Adam raised his hands beside his head, palms facing the line.

“We’re staying right here,” he said softly, though the words carried easily in the street. The man rolled his eyes, then gestured to his men.

“Move them.” Two moved forward, faces obscured by helmet and visor. Adam closed his eyes. Hands grabbed him, pulling his hands behind his back…

“And what makes you think you can move _me?_ ” a voice asked. It wasn’t one Adam knew, and he knew most of the people in this crowd. He’d gone to church with them. Sat in school with them. Mourned with them. The hands grabbing Adam’s arms slackened and, hesitantly, he opened his eyes.

The protesters parted around a figure with long blonde hair wearing armour of midnight blue and gold, a red cape falling across her shoulders and to the ground. An emblem sat proudly on her chest — a stylised S.

“Tell the mayor that this man,” she gestured to Adam, “has asked him a question. Until that question is answered, no one will be using this road.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, blue eyes fixed on the lead policeman. He gulped, then spoke into his radio. Supergirl turned that stare on the two cops holding Adam, and they retreated immediately.

Heart pounding, he rushed back, pulling Demi into a fierce hug. The whole crowd looked to the woman in blue, awed. The reporter had stopped hiding her camera. Instead, she’d fixed it on Supergirl’s face.

“Why?” someone asked from the back.

“Supergirl?”

“Why help us?”

Supergirl looked at Adam, and in the eyes of the most powerful woman in the world, he saw pain. And he saw compassion.

“Because it’s _right._ ”

She stood there alongside them for five hours. And in that time over a hundred reporters arrived, and even some helicopters hovered over the highway. But the part that amazed Adam the most was that, as the minutes wore on, their numbers swelled by tens of thousands. People from all across the city were joining their blockade. They didn’t have signs or posters. Instead, they brought bottled water and fresh food.

As the fifth hour was ticking to a close, a limousine arrived. Supergirl turned to Adam and nodded. A whispered hush ran through the protesters as they spotted the mayor, and then something was being passed forward. Demi grabbed it, revealing a metal pole with fabric tied around it.

Red, white and blue.

Supergirl took the flag in hesitant hands, then turned to Adam.

“This is your moment. I can’t fight this battle for you. The whole world is listening. Make it count.” She unwrapped the flag and planted it into the ground. The stars and the stripes unfurled, rippling softly in the breeze. She held out the metal to Demi, who took hold with one hand. Then she gestured to old Charlie Porter. Aged, frail, the pastor of Adam’s church had never been one to surrender when he had something to fight for. He grabbed the flag too. The people around Supergirl reached out, and then the ones behind repeated it until an entire wave of people were reaching out towards that flag.

And for the first time in a long time, Adam felt just a tiny bit of hope.

Maybe, just maybe, he was a man of faith after all.

* * *

## June 12th, 2008: Metropolis, 51st and Adams,

Kara crashed through the roof of a deli, flattening the structure instantly. Her head slammed into the ticket counter, metal bending around her head.

“Ow.”

_“Supergirl? Do you copy?”_

“Yeah Oracle. Just peachy.”

Kara pushed herself upright and spat a filament of metal out of her teeth. Then she pressed a hand to her ribs. A gash had been ripped through her armour, piercing through to the skin beneath. She was… she was bleeding. Kara wasn’t afraid of blood – she was a woman after all – but she’d never bled from an actual wound before. Her skin had never been _pierced_ before. What the hell was that axe?

“Babs… Get Henshaw on the line. Right now.”

Kara walked through the wreckage of the deli as flames started springing up along the floor, burning what remained of shelving and canned goods.

_“Miss Zor El, what the hell is happening out there?! Something just came out of space and careened into the Atlantic! We didn’t even see it!”_

She stepped out of the deli and cracked her neck. An alien, twice her size, rippled with more muscles than she could count. Grey skin, black hair, one yellow eye, another dead one cut by a long scar. And clutched in its right hand was an enormous battle-axe, dripping with blood. Her blood.

“Henshaw. Clear the city,” she whispered.

_“Supergirl…”_ Babs started.

“Do it.” The line crackled, then went dead, and Kara took another step out into the road. She looked into its eye and saw only hatred unbounded. Around them, people were screaming as they fled, car tires screeching as they drove away. Kara could hear two helicopters already inbound.

“Who are you?” She asked the creature, floating up into the air, cape billowing behind her.

“The one that got here first,” it growled in a guttural rasp, lunging forward.

Kara took a long, deep breath, and moved. She balled her hand into a fist and ducked under the axe blow, then slammed her knuckles into the alien’s gut. It shot up into the air under the force of the blow, screeching. Kara followed, sonic-boom cracking glass and pavement alike. She rose up and punched it again, and again. Higher and higher above the city they soared until the creature managed to swing the axe at her. She blocked the blade away with her gauntlet, severely damaging the metal, then kicked upwards. Her dwarf-star enhanced heel cracked into the alien’s jaw, and its head snapped back. The axe bit into her thigh as claws tried to rake her side, but the armour did its job well. Screaming as the axe bit deeper and deeper, sparking pain and agony in her that she’d rarely felt before, she flipped them over and grabbed the alien by the throat. Then she forced them down. Faster, faster, until they hit the Earth at a velocity powerful enough that their landing released a shockwave that splintered the concrete of the surrounding buildings. The street was empty. Cars raced away from downtown, all except a parade of black sedans, Alex shouting orders from within.

The alien tried once more to hit her with the axe, but she grabbed the arm, bent it over her knee, and snapped it. The creature released a throaty scream as the axe fell from the limp appendage.

Kara, panting, grabbed the alien by the throat and lifted it up to face her. The one eye was still full of hate as the creature’s teeth ground and spat at her, but there was something else there now. Terror.

“Who are you?”

The alien growled trying to struggle free. But Kara stood on the beasts chest, all her gravity bared, and her grip was iron.

“Speak!”

“Rogol Zarr!” It spat.

“Why did you come here?”

“I am the first of many! You’re too juicy to resist.”

Kara lit her eyes, letting the heat of her gaze burn the creature’s skin.

“Why?”

“To destroy the last pitiful, ragged, pathetic breath of the planet Krypton.” It tried to spit at her again, but the spittle evaporated under her glare.

_Krypton?_ Unbidden, a memory flitted across her eyes: red skies, thundering noise, a flash of green and the bitter cold.

“If I’m pathetic,” she said softly, “what does that make you?”

A veritable army of DEO vans and trucks rolled up around the battlefield, forming a perimeter of people, guns drawn. Kara’s eyes flickered to Alex as she ran out of one of the vehicles, Barbara and Henshaw behind her, all armed to the teeth.

She couldn’t let them talk to this thing.

Kara’s grip slackened just slightly, and Zarr used its remaining arm to grab her and hurl her aside. She somersaulted through the air, regaining her balance, and blasted the alien with her heat vision as it caught the axe and prepared to attack once more. The beams slammed into its chest, setting the skin ablaze. Then she shot forward, grabbing Zarr by his face, and pounded him into the tarmac. Once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth, what she assumed was his heart-beat, failed. She released the body, letting it hit the crater, and watched with satisfaction as grey blood pooled around the creature’s head.

Stepping back as Alex and Barbara ran towards her, she clutched at her side, fingers coming away red.

“That stings,” she hissed, as Alex grabbed her and threw Kara’s arm around her shoulders.

“How the hell… What is that thing made off?” Alex exclaimed as Barbara dropped to her knees beside the axe, and Henshaw stooped over the creature.

“Reynolds!” He barked, “GO to the crash site and retrieve the ship this… whatever it is… used to get here. We can’t let anyone get a hold of it but us.” He turned towards Kara, and his expression softened. He nodded to her, and she returned the gesture.

“And… I can’t believe I’m saying this... get a medic for Supergirl.”


End file.
